Boy, 8, dies of rare disease hours after doctors failed to test blood
DOCTORS failed to provide ‘basic medical attention’ when they neglected to carry out a simple blood test on a boy who later died of a rare blood disease, a coroner has said.
Callum Cartlidge, eight, could have been saved but died less than 24 hours after being sent home from hospital, an inquest heard.
He was wrongly diagnosed with gastroenteritis and sent home with the rehydration medication Dioralyte. He had a cardiac arrest and died the next day.
Following an inquest, assistant coroner David Reid said the decision to discharge him at 10.30pm without carrying out a blood test was ‘not reasonable’.
A test would have shown Callum was suffering from dangerously low levels of the hormone cortisol, due to his undiagnosed Addison’s disease. The disease damages
‘He would have survived’
the adrenal glands, which produce hormones. Cortisol plays a part in the reaction to stress as well as the health of the body’s immune system, bones and metabolism.
Medics were also criticised for not accurately recording how much fluid Callum had drunk but the coroner said it did not amount to neglect on behalf of the hospital. Recording a narrative verdict, Mr Reid told Worcestershire coroner’s court: ‘Callum was a loving boy who was always happy and who loved football and school. He was very sociable and always wanted to play.
‘His headteacher paid tribute to him as a lovable rogue.
‘I find as a matter of fact, on the balance of probabilities, that the decision not to carry out a blood test and discharge Callum was not reasonable in the circumstances.’ Callum was first admitted to Worcestershire Royal Hospital on March 2 last year but died the next day after being sent home. The coroner said ‘on the balance of probabilities, he would have survived’ if he had been diagnosed and immediately treated.
He added: ‘I find that the failure to carry out blood tests was indeed a failure to provide basic medical attention.’ As the verdict was read out Callum’s mother Stacey, 33, sitting with husband Ade, 37, began to cry.
During the five- day inquest it was revealed Callum, from Redditch in Worcestershire, had been suffering from symptoms of Addison’s disease, including painful legs, dizziness and sunken eyes, since December 2016.
The inquest was also told Callum had a 23-minute ambulance journey to Worcester Royal the day he died, rather than to Alexandra hospital, three minutes away, which stopped admitting children to A&E in 2016.
The inquest heard that Callum had been seen by a junior trainee doctor who made a note to the registrar to ‘consider bloods’ but it was not done.
Dr Baylon Kamalarajan, the clinical paediatric director at the Worcestershire Royal, told the inquest the discharge was ‘appropriate’ given his ‘clinical presentation’. Callum’s mother said: ‘I put my trust in that doctor.’
Callum leaves behind his twin brother Aiden, now nine, sister Makayla, six, and brother Laighton, one. Dr Andrew Short of Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, said: ‘We would like to again express our deepest condolences to Mr and Mrs Cartlidge... and apologise for the failures described by the coroner.’