Ray of hope: Mum’s joy at baby born year after daughter’s sepsis death
GLOWING with maternal pride as she holds her little girl, Samantha McNeice looks like any other mother embarking on parenthood.
But though she and partner Phil Crandle are full of hope for baby Mia’s future, they admit her birth was tinged with sorrow.
The seven-week-old will never know her older sister Evie, the couple’s firstborn, who died last year at 15 months after hospital staff failed to spot she had sepsis.
At an inquest in January, Miss McNeice revealed she had begged nurses at Whiston Hospital’s A&E in Merseyside to check if Evie, who showed symptoms
such as a high temperature and racing heart rate, was at risk of the illness.
But they ignored her pleas and sent Evie home with Calpol. The hospital was found guilty of neglect and ‘missed opportunities’ to administer antibiotics to Evie, who died two days later in April last year. Yesterday the couple, from Liverpool, spoke for the first time about the arrival of baby Mia, saying she the little girl whose middle name is Evie has given them hope. Mr Crandle, 35, a charity operations manager, said: ‘Mia has given us a future, because we lost everything when we lost Evie. ‘Mia is perfect, but there’s been a lot of mixed emotions. We’ve had to drag ourselves out of bed some days, but now Mia’s here she does that for us.’ Miss McNeice, 31, also an operations manager, added: – ‘It’s overwhelming but I’ve so – much hope. I can see Mia’s future. She gives us that purpose again.’ She said that soon after Evie’s death the couple had a ‘ scary’ chat about having another child. She discovered she was pregnant less than three months later, and Mia was born in March this year, weighing 7lb 12oz. The mother said: ‘ We weren’t trying to replace Evie, but we loved being parents. We were over the moon when we found out we were pregnant, but everything since has been bittersweet.’
The couple have weekly counselling sessions at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital – where Evie was taken for specialist care – and have raised £16,000 for its paediatric intensive care unit and bereavement suite.
To donate go to www.justgiving.com/fundraising/eviepie