‘Happy, smiling’ baby died after hospital neglect
A JURY has concluded that there was a ‘gross failure’ by a hospital which sent a baby home just hours before he died from meningitis.
Three-month-old Mohammad Aldmour was taken by ambulance to Tameside General Hospital, after he fell ill with symptoms including vomiting, paleness and a temperature of over 38 degrees.
According to the hospital’s own policy and national guidelines, he should not have been sent home and should have been given antibiotics and fluids.
An inquest has heard that had this been the case, on the balance of probability, Mohammad would have been likely to survive.
Instead, he was incorrectly diagnosed with a respiratory tract infection and discharged to his family’s home in Hyde, despite his concerned mum ‘begging’ hospital staff to keep him in.
Within hours, his condition deteriorated and his family called an ambulance after he started to develop spots and went pale.
He was taken back to Tameside and started on antibiotics after a nurse recognised how seriously ill Mohammad really was, but he went into cardiac arrest and tragically died from meningococcal septicaemia a short time later.
Mohammad’s mum Muna Aburizeq has now bravely released a harrowing photo of her beloved only child covered in a meningitis rash, taken shortly before he passed away.
The jury found that there was a ‘gross failure’ by Tameside Hospital to provide
‘basic medical attention’ for Mohammad.
Recording a conclusion that the baby died of natural causes contributed to by neglect, the jury unanimously agreed that a number of failings during his first visit to hospital on Monday, September 10 2018, had contributed to Mohammad’s death.
When summing up the case, coroner Alison Mutch also acknowledged a number of failings by the North West Ambulance Service crew who took Mohammad back to hospital in the early hours of the morning. They included not prealerting the hospital and failing to notice that a monitor had detected changes to his vital signs. However, Ms Mutch directed the jury to conclude that these failings did not contribute to Mohammad’s death, only because on the balance of probability, it was already too late by this stage to save Mohammad’s life.
The hearing previously heard that after putting Mohammad in the ambulance, it was a further 17 minutes before they set off and the journey was not made on emergency blue lights.
The coroner will be issuing a Prevention of Future Deaths report to the Secretary of State for Health, the Healthcare Safety Investigations Branch, and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) as a result. Ms Mutch said: “I have seen detailed action plans from the hospital and North West Ambulance Service. Both these reports acknowledge the evidence that policies were not followed and have detailed significant changes that have been brought in. “However it is clear to me that a number of issues that arose in this case go far beyond Tameside and far beyond south Manchester and relate to matters of national importance,
Mohammad’s mother Muna Aburizeq relating to early intervention, particularly in vulnerable members of society, children and the elderly.”
A spokesman for Tameside Hospital NHS Foundation Trust said: “This is a tragic situation and our heartfelt condolences go to Mohammad’s family for their loss.
“We fully accept the jury’s findings today; and as a result, the lessons we have learned from our internal investigation; a number of changes have been implemented to secure further improvements in our pathways of care.
“We are deeply sorry that the care provided to him was not to the standard that we would expect”.
After the hearing, Mohammad’s mum, Muna Aburizeq said: “I feel like we have finally got some justice for my son.”
She added: “I had been waiting for Mohammad for a long time. I had been trying to have a baby for 11 years, so the whole family was overjoyed when I got pregnant.
“When he arrived, he was the light of our lives. He was such a happy baby; he never cried and was always smiling. I knew my boy was ill and it was something more serious than a cold virus, but I felt utterly helpless.
“My concerns were dismissed at every turn. I knew Mohammad was drifting away from me and needed help but nobody would listen.
“I don’t think I will ever recover and listening to the evidence has been incredibly painful but I feel like we have finally got some justice for my son.
“Nothing will ever change what’s happened and it’s something we have to learn to live with, but I hope the serious failings identified by the coroner will at least mean that no other child will suffer as he did.”
Victoria Beel, a clinical negligence specialist at Slater and Gordon, who represents the family, added: “The tragedy here is that Mohammad’s mother did absolutely everything right but she was let down by the professionals who failed to act on the very clear warning signs.”