Questions must be asked for Charlie’s family’s sake

WE IMPLICITLY trust doctors when we talk to them about our health problems, and listen to their verdicts – it’s an essential part of the patient/ doctor relationship.

And the vast majority of the time, their professional advice is sound, and will help us on the road to recovery, whether it turns out to be something minor or a more serious ailment.

Unfortunately there are those who slip through the net.

The tragic story of Charlie Crawford is one such case.

It would appear that the delay in getting a correct diagnosis, compounded by our under-pressure and under-staffed NHS and the resulting wait of some three months between a phone appointment and a gastroscopy procedure, severely tilted the odds against Charlie.

While Charlie was getting increasingly poorly, his wife Sam was pregnant with their daughter – Nellie was eventually born in January.

Sam will now have to raise Nellie without her father, and having only had him for the first few months if her life, the girl will never be able to recall her dad.

As Charlie’s health declined dramatically, it took Sam begging for an ambulance for her partner for him to be admitted to hospital.

We are sure that Sam and Charlie’s loved ones will be wanting answers as to how the early stages of his illness were handled. And they deserve to have their questions answered.

Dr Dominic Davis, GP partner at Homewell Practice, says they ‘have looked into the tragic events to see what, if anything, we could have done differently.’

But he does not say what that outcome is, and if anything could have been done differently.

Would an initial face-toface appointment made a difference?

Charlie’s loved ones must not be fobbed off with platitudes.