Nurse accused of killing boy, 7, at private hospital
A NURSE has appeared in court accused of killing a boy of seven at Britain’s biggest private children’s hospital.
Anuradha Bhupathiraju, 62, is charged with gross negligence manslaughter over the death of James Dwerryhouse, whose sleeping equipment was allegedly left off for nearly three hours. He died of a catastrophic brain injury.
The nurse has now appeared before Westminster magistrates accused of causing James’s death by leaving his monitor turned off without a doctor’s permission.
The boy, who suffered from numerous health conditions, which meant he had to be fed through a tube, had been in hospital for a routine bowel operation. Because he suffered from sleep apnoea, which can cause life-threatening breathing stoppages, he was connected to equipment that alerted doctors to any deterioration in his breathing as he slept.
But the vital equipment was allegedly removed during the early hours.
His father John told his son’s inquest that after coming round from surgery on the morning of August 25, 2016, his son was energetic and sitting in his bed playing with his Playmobil figures. Mr Dwerryhouse
said he then received a call at around 4.20am to say that James wasn’t well and that he and his wife Marguerite needed to come to the hospital right away.
When the couple arrived, their son’s eyes were half closed, he was covered in a rash and his dilated pupils indicated he was brain dead, Mr Dwerryhouse said.
James was transferred to the Treehouse Hospice in his hometown Ipswich, where he died on August 28.
A verdict of hypoxic-ischemic brain injury as a result of sleep apnoea was recorded at his inquest in 2017.
Bhupathiraju, a nurse with more than three decades of experience, spoke in court on Tuesday only to confirm her name, date of birth and her address.
Senior District Judge Paul Goldspring bailed her ahead of a plea hearing at Southwark Crown Court next month. She is prohibited from leaving the UK and must surrender her passport to the police.