🔺NHS FAILINGS:MOTHERS 5-YEAR FIGHT AFTER DOCTORS MISSED SIGNS OF KILLER MENINGITIS IN HER BABY!.CLAIMED IT WAS A VIRUS AND PRESCRIBED CALPOL!!. 🔺🔻🔺🔻🔺🔻🔺🔻🔺🔻🔺A mother has exposed how ‘arrogant’ doctors missed signs her eight-month-old daughter had meningitis – and simply advised her to give her Calpol. After a five-year battle to uncover the truth, an inquest has ruled that medics’ treatment of Abby Dalton’s daughter Eloise contributed to her death. Miss Dalton, 37, said that doctors had ‘dismissed’ her concerns that her baby had meningitis and sent them home from hospital. The worried mother, who had even brought a checklist of common symptoms of meningitis to the hospital, said the doctors made her feel like an ‘overly-protective parent’. They told her it was ‘just a virus’ and advised her simply to give her Calpol and ibuprofen. But Eloise’s condition worsened and she died six days later, after more blunders by medical staff at Leeds General Infirmary, the inquest heard. The hospital then told the grieving mother there was no need to involve a coroner, but Miss Dalton contacted one herself to expose the truth and the inquest has finally taken place. Recording a narrative verdict, coroner David Hinchliff said that doctors’ inadequate care for Eloise and the mistakes in treatment amounted to neglect, contributing to her death from multi-organ failure. A serious incident report detailed a total of 27 failings by the NHS trust. Miss Dalton, an IT manager, said: ‘If they had listened to me when we first took her in then she would have survived. ‘I would say to other parents that you need to trust your instincts. Doctors don’t always get it right. You have to push every step of the way.’ She added: ‘No one would listen to me. We faced blocker after blocker after blocker.’ Miss Dalton, of Guiseley, West Yorkshire, noticed Eloise ‘wasn’t herself’ after picking her up from nursery in December 2009. She spotted a rash and, recognising it as a possible sign of meningitis from a picture card of symptoms she kept on her fridge, took Eloise to hospital. ‘We had to wait for what felt like an age. The doctors were really arrogant and I felt they were dismissing my concerns,’ she said. Eloise was sent home, but Miss Dalton took her back to hospital two days later when she developed an alarmingly high temperature. Doctors again tried to send Eloise home, but Miss Dalton refused to leave. Medics stuck to their diagnosis even after Eloise suffered a 30-minute seizure. She was eventually admitted to paediatric intensive care the following day. Blood tests confirmed Eloise had meningitis two days later on December 16 – the day before she died. Sadly, by then it was too late to treat her. A report by Dr Nelly Ninis, a consultant in paediatrics from St Mary’s Hospital in London, concluded that if Eloise had been put on antibiotics at her first visit to hospital she would have survived. The inquest in Leeds also heard criticism of hospital authorities for not reporting the death to a coroner themselves. Asked if she thought the hospital had tried to cover-up failings, Miss Dalton, who has a four-year-old daughter Megan and is now separated from the girls’ father, said: ‘They wanted the whole thing to go away and we didn’t.’ The NHS trust later agreed to pay Eloise’s family an undisclosed six-figure settlement. An investigation by Leeds Teaching Hospitals recommended 22 changes in paediatric care, which have since been implemented. Dr Yvette Oade, chief medical officer of the NHS Trust, said: ‘I would like to extend our sincere sympathy to the family of Eloise and to apologise for the failings in her care, which we fully acknowledge and have taken detailed steps to address.’
Posted on: Tue, 16 Dec 2014 08:09:06 +0000