Anger at hospital failures that cost baby’s life
LEWYS CRAWFORD was a happy and smiley threemonth-old baby who was “perfect” in the eyes of his parents.
When he suddenly developed a high temperature one afternoon, his mum and dad, Kirsty Link and Aidan Crawford, wasted no time taking him to A&E.
It later emerged Lewys was suffering with the early stages of meningococcal disease and was at a high risk of developing sepsis.
The 13-week-old baby could have survived if he was given antibiotics at the earliest opportunity, an inquest later heard.
But clinicians failed to administer broad spectrum antibiotics until more than six hours after Lewys arrived at the University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff. Lewys died the following day. An inquest concluded the failure to administer antibiotics amounted to a “gross failure” in his care.
“In my eyes he was perfect,” Kirsty, 33, said.
“He was happy as Larry. He was smiley and I would hardly hear him grizzle, to be honest.
“It makes me think, ‘Why us?’. Every time I see a mother with a baby I just can’t deal with it.
“I can’t deal with programmes on the telly. I can’t watch my normal programmes.
“If I do, I have to fast-forward or skip certain things if a baby comes on.”
Kirsty and Aidan, also 33, were living in St Mellons, Cardiff, when Lewys was born on December 19, 2018.
Kirsty was home alone with Lewys on the afternoon of March 21 when her son developed a high temperature.
The careful mother gave Lewys Calpol and set him down for a nap but when his temperature remained high a few hours later the couple decided to take Lewys straight to the hospital.
The family were first seen in paediatric A&E at about 8.15pm that evening before being transferred to a children’s ward at about 11.15pm.
Kirsty and Aidan said they realised clinicians were checking for signs of meningitis when they requested a lumbar puncture.
At an inquest into Lewys’ death earlier this month, a jury heard there were “multiple opportunities missed” to administer antibiotics.
Lewys was only given antibiotics at about 3am the following morning. A short time later, he was rushed to intensive care where doctors tried to bring him back to a stable condition.
Lewys died at 11.10pm on March 22. The jury recorded a conclusion of death by natural causes contributed to by neglect.
The jury found the failure to treat Lewys with antibiotics before 11.30pm “significantly contributed” to his death.
Kirsty said: “I blamed myself for seven or eight months, thinking, ‘What could I have done? What did I miss?’ – until certain reports came in.
“But I now know I did everything I possibly could for him at the right time.
“We do think now if we had taken him in at half past four or four o’clock we would have been sent straight home.”
Since the events of March last year Kirsty said she has struggled to feel secure during her own appointments.
“I don’t feel like I have got trust in them,” Kirsty said.
“I had an appointment myself last week and I was absolutely petrified to even walk in.”
Aidan said: “I would say there is definitely an element of anger, isn’t there?
“Especially as time went on and we were given more information, particularly with the things that were discussed in the inquest with some of the actions that should have been taken or should have been done sooner.
“The omission of doing certain things – that definitely makes us angry, because had they done everything at the right time and been more concerned about treating Lewys than obtaining untainted test results, we wouldn’t have had to go through all this.”
Aidan said they have been struggling to move past what happened and the inquest has allowed them to begin to move forward with their lives.
Now he says they want to see lasting changes that help prevent cases like theirs from being repeated.
He said: “The failings that happened with Lewys that caused us to lose him, we just want to make sure they don’t happen again.”
After the inquest Ruth Walker, executive nurse director at Cardiff and Vale University Health Board, apologised for the “failings in the treatment and care we provided to Lewys”, the BBC reported.
She said steps had already been taken to address some of the improvements identified in an internal investigation following Lewys’ death.
She added: “This will help ensure that the right treatment pathways are in place, and followed, for all patients that come into our care that we suspect may have sepsis.”