Girl, 5, died after GP refused to see her because she was minutes late
A FIVE-YEAR-OLD girl died after a GP refused to see her because she was 10 minutes late for an emergency appointment, an inquest has heard.
Ellie-may Clark, who suffered from severe asthma and had been wheezing and was unable to walk, arrived at the surgery five minutes late before having to wait to speak to the receptionist.
Newport coroner’s court heard her mother, Shanice Clark, who also had an eight-week-old baby and did not have a car, was given just 25 minutes to get to the appointment.
Although Ellie-may’s notes included a reference to her life-threatening asthma, Dr Joanne Rowe, who had a “10-minute rule”, declined to see her.
They returned to the family home in Malpas, Newport, where Ellie-may went to bed at about 8pm but collapsed at 10.30pm and died later in hospital.
Wendy James, senior coroner for Gwent, said it was “unacceptable” that Ellie-may was turned away without any clinical assessment or advice and said she had been “let down by the failures in the system”.
“Ellie-may Clark died of natural causes where the opportunity to provide potentially life-saving treatment was missed,” she said.
The inquest heard that Ellie-may had repeatedly been taken to hospital and had been prescribed inhalers. In May 2014, her consultant wrote a letter to her surgery to highlight her “lifethreatening condition”. Dr Rowe did not place this prominently on Elliemay’s medical records, the inquest heard.
On Jan 26, her school contacted her mother to report that she had needed her inhaler. When Miss Clark collected her, a teacher suggested she take her daughter to a doctor. A post-mortem found Ellie-may had died from bronchial asthma and may have suffered a seizure before her death due to a lack of oxygen.
Mrs James said: “It is not possible for me to determine with certainty whether an earlier intervention would have altered the outcome for Ellie, but nonetheless she should have been seen by a GP that day and she was let down by the failures in the system.”
A statement from Dr Rowe said: “Dr Rowe knows that nothing can be said to Ellie’s family to make a difference but she would like to say how truly sorry she is.”