Turned away by her doctor for being just 4 minutes late... the 5-year-old left to die INVESTIGATION
A CRITICALLY ill little girl died hours after a GP refused to see her because she turned up a few minutes late for an emergency appointment.
Astonishingly, the doctor is still practising after escaping with a ‘slap on the wrist’ at a secret disciplinary hearing. Ellie-May Clark, five, died of an asthma attack after Dr Joanne Rowe refused to see her – despite having previously been warned the girl was at risk of suffering a life-threatening seizure. The child’s distraught mother, Shanice, last night said they were just four minutes late for the appointment.
An official report, uncovered by The Mail on Sunday, stated they were eight minutes late, but Shanice insisted that was incorrect as she checked the time on her mobile phone when she arrived. They were sent home and told to return in the morning, but Shanice discovered her ‘bright and happy’ daughter having an asthma attack and not breathing an hour after she put her to bed that night. She died minutes later.
Details of the appalling blunder would have remained secret, because the doctors’ watchdog, the General Medical Council (GMC), held her disciplinary hearing behind closed doors. But the full facts can now be revealed following a Mail on Sunday investigation, which discovered a ‘confidential’ NHS report which damned Dr Rowe’s handling of the incident. It concluded that: The ‘root cause’ of the girl’s death was Dr Rowe’s refusal to see her;
The GP turned Ellie-May away without asking a single question about the girl’s condition;
Months earlier, a paediatrician had written to Dr Rowe warning that Ellie-May was ‘at risk of another life-threatening asthma attack’;
Staff were ‘fearful’ of questioning Dr Rowe because of her ‘repeated angry outbursts’ and ‘volatile’ nature;
Minutes after the Clarks went home, another GP questioned why Dr Rowe had turned them away.
Dr Rowe claimed to have been ‘in the middle’ of seeing a patient when Ellie-May arrived, but the surgery’s computer system showed that was not the case.
Dr Rowe, 53, was suspended for six months on full pay after Ellie-May’s death in Newport, South Wales, in January 2015. The case was heard behind closed doors because the GMC allows GPs to avoid public ‘fitness to practise’ hearings if they accept a proposed sanction – a process designed to help doctors avoid the ‘stress’ of public scrutiny.
Dr Rowe agreed to accept a written warning not do it again.
But last night campaigners said the current system puts patients at risk. Sir Donald Irvine, a former president of the GMC, warned the watchdog needed ‘urgent reform’. He said: ‘The GMC is there to protect the public, not for the convenience of doctors.’
While the GMC’s closed inquiry was ongoing, Dr Rowe secured a job in another surgery in nearby Cardiff, where she works today. The Mail on Sunday understands none of Dr Rowe’s patients, past or present, has been informed of her fatal mistake.
Welsh Tory MP Dr James Davies, a qualified GP, said he would urgently raise the matter with the GMC ‘in the interests of transparency’.
Last night Ellie-May’s grandmother, Brandi, said: ‘We’ve never even had an apology from Dr Rowe, who got
‘She got away with a slap on the wrist’
away with just a slap on the wrist after her clock-watching attitude killed our beautiful girl.
‘She has been allowed to get on with her life, get another job and forget about it. But we have been left with nothing but pain. Ellie-May has been denied the life she should have had.’
A report from the local health board, which oversees GPs’ surgeries, told how Shanice rang the Grange Clinic for an emergency appoint-
ment at 3.20pm on January 26, 2015, as Ellie-May had suffered an asthma attack at school.
Surgery staff knew the girl, and had helped her cope with five asthma ‘exacerbations’ in the previous six months. She had also ended up in a high dependency unit five times before that.
A GP called Shanice back at 4.32pm, agreed Ellie-May needed a face-to-face consultation and offered a 5pm emergency slot with Dr Rowe.
Shanice arrived at the surgery with Ellie-May just after 5pm. According to the NHS report, Shanice said she arrived at ‘about 5.08pm’, but she insisted to this paper it was 5.04pm.
Mother and daughter then waited several minutes while the receptionist dealt with a phone call and another patient. The receptionist finally addressed Shanice at 5.18pm, the report notes, calling through to Dr Rowe to ask if she would see them. According to the receptionist’s account, the GP then ‘shouted something like “No, I’m not seeing her, she’s late”.’
The receptionist replied: ‘She’ll have to come back in the morning, won’t she?’
The report says that Dr Rowe pointed out to the receptionist that the patient was more than ten minutes behind schedule, so too late to be seen, and agreed Ellie-May should come back in the morning.
After the Clarks went home another surgery doctor questioned Dr Rowe’s decision, telling a receptionist ‘they could not turn emergency appointments away’.
At 10.35pm Shanice discovered Ellie-May was having an asthma attack and had stopped breathing. She rang 999 but despite attempts by family, ambulance paramedics and doctors at Royal Gwent Hospital, Ellie-May could not be saved.
When the health board investigated, it found Dr Rowe gave incorrect information, including her claim to be with another patient at the time. They also found that staff were ‘fearful of questioning’ Dr Rowe due to her ‘angry outbursts’.
It concluded the ‘root cause’ of the child’s death was that Dr Rowe ‘refused to see EM [Ellie-May] because she was brought in late’. It also noted that months earlier a hospital paediatrician had written to Dr Rowe warning that Ellie-May was ‘at risk of another episode of severe / life-threatening asthma’.
Despite this, the report said, Dr Rowe ‘did not make any clinical assessment of EM before refusing to see her’ and failed to give her mother any ‘safety netting advice’.
The ‘serious concern’ was passed to the GMC but Dr Rowe was allowed to continue practising with only minor restrictions.
Last May she attended a closeddoors meeting where she agreed to a written warning, wiped from her record after five years. The 294word warning, buried on the GMC’s website, says Dr Rowe ‘declined to see a child patient’ who was late and ‘did not consider’ that the child ‘had a history of severe asthma’. ‘The child died later that evening of asthma,’ it states. ‘Your failure to see and assess this child does not meet with the standards required.’
But it concludes the failing was ‘not so serious’ as to warrant suspension or a ban.
Dr Rowe declined to respond to the health board’s report.
The Grange Clinic referred The Mail on Sunday’s detailed questions to Aneurin Bevan University Health Board, which refused to answer, insisting we lodge a Freedom of Information request instead.
Mother rang 999 – but she could not be saved
WHEN a young mother takes her sick child to a surgery, she is entitled to expect the devoted attention of a dedicated professional.
This is what Ellie-May Clark did not get. This little girl, just five years old, had a history of severe asthma. Yet Dr Joanne Rowe refused to see her, on the grounds that her mother was a few minutes late for a booked appointment.
Such rigidity might be forgivable in the case of an adult with a minor ailment, but it is clearly inexcusable when a small child is suffering a medical emergency. There is also a nasty suggestion of clockwatching, as it was the penultimate appointment of the day.
A few hours later, Ellie-May Clark suffered a seizure and died, despite the efforts of an ambulance crew.
This is all quite bad enough. The General Medical Council agrees. It told Dr Rowe: ‘Your failure to see and assess this child does not meet with the standards required of a doctor.’
But the case was heard in private, and the penalty, a formal warning which expires after five years, was more or less non-existent.
Astonishingly, there has still not even been a full inquest.
The trust between patient and doctor has been betrayed. A grieving family rightly feel that their loss has been brushed aside.
Without the vigilance of a free press it would have remained buried in official documents.
There is no excuse. Such cases should be heard in the open, and those responsible should be properly disciplined, not least to reassure the public that such behaviour will never be tolerated or covered up.
The GMC is not there to look after its own, but to look after us all.