Niece claims uncle has been handed death sentence after cancer signs ‘missed’
FAMILY NOW TRYING TO ENJOY WHAT TIME THEY HAVE LEFT TOGETHER
A DERBY woman claims mistakes in her uncle’s care which could have been fixed much sooner have left him unable to speak or lead a normal life.
Kirsty Porter’s uncle, David Costello, was discharged from the Royal Derby Hospital on July 13, after throat surgery which followed weeks of breathing difficulties.
She says Mr Costello was admitted three times in 12 days prior to the operation and only on the third visit was the cause of his breathing difficulties spotted – a rapidly growing tumour in his throat that could have been picked up at a scan several days earlier.
Mr Costello struggles to write due to dyslexia, so Kirsty and his family must now lip-read or get him to use auto-correct features on phones, and they do not know how long they have left with Mr Costello.
Kirsty, 27, of Osmaston, says she is waiting to receive legal advice. She says she has tried to make an official complaint, but adds that although the care given by nurses was “amazing”, she believes it should not have taken so long for the issue to be spotted by doctors, despite her pleas.
She said: “I want them to fix the care. He is 59 years old, he should not be in the state that he is in now. He can no longer speak, can’t eat, he has to eat through a food tube in his belly. He is on nebulisers four to six times a day.
“He can’t lead a normal life because of the mistakes they have made and the delay in the care they have given him, resulting in the tracheostomy (breathing tube into the throat through the neck) he has now had. He can make odd noises but his speech is very, very limited.
“It is practically lip-reading because his tumour is from his voice box upwards. It’s impossible for him to get barely any words out.
“He has raised me since I was a child. He has always been there and lived with us for various points. I see him day in, day out and he is very close with my daughter.
“He is a fun, cheeky man and never bothers anyone. He cared for others, looked after my nan for about 11 years and gave up his full-time job to care for her and be there for her 24/7, and now it is him that needs the care. It’s devastating. He just now wants to be at home and spend what little time he does have with my daughter and I, and my other family, to make the most of it.”
Mr Costello, 59, from Derby, worked as a labourer before caring for his mother. He had been unable to work in recent years due to restenosis (a narrowing of the arteries) and osteoporosis (a condition that weakens bones).
He was diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in July 2021, and diagnosed with lung cancer in November. Shortly after, it was discovered he also had a tumour in his throat.
After daily radiotherapy sessions on weekdays through December until the end of January, there were no signs of cancer found in his throat at the end of March.
However, despite then being given the all-clear for lung cancer a few weeks later, signs of his throat cancer had returned, and a positron emission tomography (PET) scan was booked in at Nottingham City Hospital for June 8 to discover the extent.
Kirsty was due to be on holiday so arranged for another person to take her uncle to the scan.
But on June 6, Mr Costello was admitted to the Royal Derby Hospital with breathing difficulties, requiring nebulisers (devices which turn liquid medicine into a fine mist) for two days while staying on the hospital’s Medical Assessment Ward.
Kirsty says she repeatedly rang the hospital while on holiday in Turkey to ask that transport, either by health services or family, was arranged to take Mr Costello to his scan. Despite being discharged on June 8, no transport was arranged, and the scan was missed.
Kirsty says Mr Costello struggled at home for three days and returned to hospital on June 12 with similar breathing issues, where a pneumothorax (air between the lungs and chest wall which can cause a collapse of the lung) was discovered.
He was again treated with nebulisers to aid his breathing, and stayed in hospital until June 15.
Kirsty said she begged for her uncle not to be discharged, compounded by the fact that Mr Costello had lost his mobility and needed a wheelchair to move around at home. The issue with his airway was also left uninvestigated, Kirsty claims, but Mr Costello was discharged as Kirsty scrambled to find a nebuliser to help his breathing.
On, June 17, he was admitted to the Royal Derby for a third time with the same breathing difficulties and Kirsty feared for his survival.
She said: “He’s a very, very proud man. He doesn’t like asking for help and he was barely able to speak, but when I rang him he told me he felt like he was going to die and he told me to come up and stay with him, which isn’t something that would ever come out of his mouth normally. When I got there, he couldn’t even lift his hand. He was completely floored, and so I asked what tests had been done, and I was told his observations and bloods are fine. But patients are not numbers, everyone is different, and I wanted someone to come and have a look at him properly.”
Eventually, after discussions with a doctor from the ear, nose and throat team, a camera was put down Mr Costello’s nose and throat. This discovered the tumour in his throat – which was meant to be discovered at the booked scan on June 8 – had grown so quickly, it had blocked his airway except for a small gap.
A plan was devised to operate to create space for Mr Costello to breathe. This would have been performed on June 19, before a laryngectomy on July 4, which would have seen all or part of the larynx, or voice box, removed so as to remove the tumour.
But these plans were dashed when his consultant said that, given Mr Costello’s untreated pneumothorax, a full laryngectomy could kill him.
This meant the only options were a tracheostomy, or to do nothing. A tracheostomy, where an opening is created so a tube can be inserted into the windpipe, was performed on June 20, and Mr Costello was discharged on Wednesday, July 13.
Kirsty said: “Two weeks prior to this, he was nowhere near this state. If the PET scan had been done as it was supposed to, they would know why he was so unwell. But it was too late. They handed him a death sentence by not treating him properly on the first admission, because of how quickly it escalated. He can’t have radiotherapy and he must have either chemotherapy or immunotherapy to give him some extra time, as the cancer will take him and nothing can be done to cure it.”
Garry Marsh, executive chief nurse, said: “The experience that our patients have while accessing our services is really important to us, and we are sorry to Mr Costello and his family for their experiences. We have proactively reached out to Mr Costello’s family to begin to understand and address their concerns.”