Surgeon ‘devastated’ over death of toddler
INQUEST TOLD CONSULTANT FELT IT APPROPRIATE TO APOLOGISE FOR CARE BOY RECEIVED
A CONSULTANT has spoken of her devastation as she faced the family of a toddler who had died after waiting three days for crucial surgery.
Kayden Urmston-Bancroft required an ‘urgent’ procedure at Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital [RMCH] but action was repeatedly delayed.
Kayden was born with a diaphragmatic hernia, but it was only discovered when the youngster was taken to Stepping Hill Hospital in Stockport after falling from a bed and banging his face in April 2016.
An X-ray showed that part of his bowel had burst through the hole in his diaphragm and he was transferred to RMCH for urgent surgery. But three days later, the youngster was still waiting for surgery and went into cardiac arrest. He never regained consciousness and died surrounded by his family two days later.
An inquest into his death in Manchester was told how the urgent procedure at the RMCH was repeatedly put off because there were no post-operative beds free in the High Dependency Unit [HDU].
Ms Jigna Sheth, the consultant paediatric surgeon who operated on Kayden after he had gone into arrest, told the court she felt it ‘appropriate’ to apologise to the family for the care they had received at the hospital. Recalling the conversation she had with Kayden’s mum, Shannon Bancroft, and his grandmother, Julie Rowlands, she said: “I remember being devastated for them and I apologised that it [the surgery] had not been sooner, given the situation we found ourselves in.” Ms Sheth added: “I think it goes without saying, had he had his surgery when he was well we would have expected a good outcome.” Jigna Sheth, paediatric surgeon
Kayden, a 20-month-old boy from Stockport, was transferred to the RMCH for urgent surgery from Stepping Hill on Tuesday, April 12, 2016.
An X-ray taken at Stepping Hill showed that part of his bowel had burst through the hole in his diaphragm, meaning his organs were pushing on his chest.
But the inquest heard how the operation to repair the hernia was repeatedly delayed due to a lack of beds in the HDU, where patients are usually cared for after surgery.
This was despite Kayden being put on a list of patients requiring emergency surgery known as the CEPOD list, the inquest heard.
Another consultant surgeon who had been drafted in to cover the oncall list one evening said many cases had been cancelled that week due to the lack of beds. James Moorecroft, in a statement accepted as evidence yesterday, said the hospital needed to give more consideration to the ‘whole patient pathway’ before accepting complex emergency cases from other hospitals.
“In Kayden’s case, there were no HDU or Paediatric Intensive Care Unit [PICU] beds,” the statement said.
Proceeding