Manslaughter trial GP defends ‘risky’ phone consultation
A DOCTOR accused of killing a child through negligence by not making a home visit or realising he was dying, told police that having a consultation over the phone was risky
But Dr Lindsey Thomas, 42, whose patient Ryan Morse, 12, died within hours of his mother speaking to her in a call to the surgery, said GPs were expected to put their “necks on the line” daily.
She said she would always prefer to see people face-to-face but if that was not possible, GPs wouldn’t refuse to talk to patients and she always asked them to call back if things did not improve.
“Yes it is more difficult,” she said in interviews read out at Cardiff Crown Court yesterday. “It is very risky – of all the health professionals we are the only ones who put our necks on the line to try to help people over the phone.
“Where possible it is better to see a patient but there are inevitably going to be times you don’t see them. You just have to do your job as best you can.”
Thomas of Copper Beech Drive, Tredegar, and her colleague at Abernant Surgery in Abertillery, Dr Joanne Rudling, 46, both deny a charge of manslaughter.
Rudling of Blackberry Way, Pontprennau, also denies attempting to pervert the course of justice with an entry in the child’s medical notes.
Questioned by the Aneurin Bevan Health Board following Ryan’s death at home in the early hours of December 8, 2012, Thomas put Carol Morse down as a “very sensible mum” when she spoke to her on the morning of December 7.
It was her first contact with the family as she’d only joined Abernant Surgery in Abertillery as a partner a month earlier.
Thomas noted in the records that Mrs Morse said her son was “burning up”, had sickness and diarrhoea and the symptoms of delirium, and that the mother thought he might have a vomiting bug which had left half the teachers and pupils away from his school.
Thomas said she advised giving paracetamol, which he had not taken that day, and frequent sips of fluid and told Mrs Morse to ring again if she had further concerns.
“I said paracetamol can work wonders in young children,” she said. “I said if she had any other concerns, please ring back.
“She seemed very sensible – I absolutely felt she understood the advice was giving her.
“When I left work at 2.30pm (she was on a halfday) I did think of Ryan and assumed (because there had been no call back) that he had settled down. I thought he was suffering from norovirus like many others, in what was a national outbreak. I was shocked, on Monday, to hear he had died.”
Ryan’s death was later found to have been caused
Iby a crisis brought on through undiagnosed Addison’s – a rare disease, especially in children – but treatable.
Prosecutors say the two GPs on trial cannot be blamed for failing to recognise its symptoms, which include diarrhoea, vomiting, weakness, loss of weight and a darkening of the skin – all of which Mrs Morse says she brought to the surgery’s attention over a five month period. But they claim further investigation on his last day alive would have shown that he was “gravely ill”, and say getting him to hospital would have led to life-saving treatment.
Thomas told police after she voluntarily went to Ystrad Mynach police station in 2013 that with a child “you need to rely on parents to monitor the situation” and you had to “trust the person on the phone to take your advice”.