Baby girl died after heart op was delayed three times
A BABY girl died a week before a potentially lifesaving heart operation that had been delayed three times, an inquest heard.
Iris Day was born with a condition that meant she had a large hole in the centre of her heart, allowing blood to flow between all four chambers.
Her parents, who learnt about her condition during pregnancy, claim they were told she would be put on a waiting list to have the procedure to correct the defect.
But they say this did not happen and when Iris, who had Down’s syndrome, was finally scheduled for surgery it was cancelled three times – once because there were not enough hospital beds. The inquest also heard that Evelina London
‘Extremely unfortunate’
Children’s Hospital in Lambeth, south London, where the operation was due to be performed, was not consulted by a local hospital when Iris’s condition began to deteriorate on the day she died.
The cancellations were investigated by Dr Marilyn McDougall, a paediatric intensive care consultant at the children’s hospital.
Yesterday she told the inquest that the first delay, in early November last year, happened because Iris was ‘unwell and in intensive care’ with a viral infection and the risks of surgery were deemed too high.
The next, on November 25, was unable to take place because of a ‘lack of intensive care beds’. The third cancellation, on November 30, was because another child was prioritised she said, adding: ‘There was another emergency case that day. Unfortunately, that child on intensive care was critically unwell.’
She concluded: ‘Although it was extremely unfortunate, I don’t think any of those factors were incorrect given the evidence at the time.’
Cancelled operations were ‘unfortunately much more frequent than we would like’, she added, with 120 this year to date. The hospital is planning to add ten beds by May.
Six-month-old Iris’s operation to repair her condition – complete atrioventricular septal defect – was rescheduled for December 9, but she was taken to A&E at Colchester Hospital with breathing problems in the middle of the night exactly a week earlier.
Her parents, Ben, 41, and Hannah, 29, say they were told later in the day that Iris had settled and was improving and were advised to go to their home in Great Braxted, Essex, and collect some belongings.
But while away they received an urgent call telling them to return.
By the time they got to their daughter’s bedside she had died. The cause of death was her unrepaired heart condition
At the inquest in Chelmsford, paediatric consultant Dr Bhupinder Sihra admitted he had failed to arrange for Evelina hospital to be contacted about Iris’s worsening condition. ‘I didn’t ask one specific doctor to do it and that was an error on my part,’ he said.
The inquest continues.