Somebody needs to speak for us… and speak for Sophia – Theresa Smith
A mum battling for answers three years after her baby died says her lost daughter is the reason why patients need a champion.
Theresa Smith and husband Matthew cradled baby Sophia as she died at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow three years ago.
But the heartbroken couple say they still do not know why their 12-day-old daughter died. Theresa, a former shop owner and publican, said: “We know she developed an infection while she was being cared for at the hospital, but we don’t know what caused it.
“One minute we were being told Sophia was almost at the stage of being able to go home, the next we were cradling our dying baby. The last three years trying to get answers have been a nightmare. We feel we’ve been cast out into the darkness, with nobody to speak up for us.
“How I wish we’d have had a Patients’ Commissioner to turn to, someone who could have taken the terrible burden of getting answers off our shoulders so we could grieve for our daughter.”
Sophia was born in March 2017 and developed breathing difficulties. But, after treatment at the new hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit, her oxygen levels were improving so much, hopes were raised Sophia was almost ready to go home.
Within hours of contracting an infection similar to MRSA, Sophia’s tiny body rapidly shut down and, as her organs failed, all her parents could do was cradle her in their arms as she died.
Theresa says, within an hour and still in shock, she was asked to sign a death certificate. She said: “Since then, nobody from the NHS wants to answer our questions. We still have not been told how Sophia got the infection. Since she was never out of the hospital you’d hope they’d want to know.
“We’ve had to fight tooth and nail to get access to documents we’re legally entitled to, including Sophia’s post-mortem. When I asked why we weren’t given the report, I was told I wouldn’t have been able to understand it. It was so insulting.”
Theresa and Matthew’s lawyer, Patrick McGuire, head litigator at Thompsons Solicitors, is pressing for a Fatal Accident inquiry into Sophia’s death.
Theresa said: “We wholeheartedly support a Patients’ Commissioner for Scotland because nobody is listening to families like us who’ve lost loved ones. Somebody needs to speak for us. Somebody needs to speak for Sophia.”