Harrowing account of Martha Mill's death at 13 in Guardian today

[StaplesCorner]

I don't think there's another thread on this already I did a search, but I think this needs to be widely read - there seems to have been no lack of NHS resources here whatsoever, but consultants' arrogance by the spade; shades of This is Going to Hurt? Every parents' worst nightmare:

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/sep/03/13-year-old-daughter-dead-in-five-weeks-hospital-mistakes

Oh my word. Who swallowed a copy of Gray’s Anatomy?! I usually hit them with ‘intercostal recession’ and ‘increased work of breathing’. The responses are very mixed!

This is just awful. I’m so sorry for the family, for Martha.

My mum was an auxiliary nurse for years and has always pressed on us that it’s the families who shout the loudest who get the best outcomes. When anyone in our family has a medical issue or is hospitalised she pipes up with this and coached a few family members into demanding better care over the years. I realise now how important it is and dread to think what she witnessed to be so certain about it.

Without belittling this story at all, I wonder how many others this has happened to. The author (mother) works for the Guardian, and has written in detail of her experience....and has had it published in a national (free to read online) newspaper. A PP has said some of the drs are known within their community.
...but I wonder if they would have been known about had she not worked for the guardian? Could it have been (even more) brushed under the carpet?

And God forbid you ask to have a look at the BNF when a medication is suggested for you. I asked a psychiatrist and she was so outraged that she withheld the medication from me just because I wanted to understand what the medication was and the side effects. I mean the BNF is literally only a book, no idea what they thought might happen if a patient dared to read it!

Splash she withheld it?!

I have said I will get a prescription filled after looking in the BNF.

Seconded. I checked the NICE guidelines re my son last weekend at the walk-in centre and that went down like a lead balloon.

Regarding learning from aviation in healthcare we have 'SBAR' which is an acronym (situation, background, assessment, recommendation) used to facilitate communication when escalating a situation. It came about from the pilot who's wife died while the doctors were trying to intubate and the nurses were too scared to intervene.

Interesting to read this. A relative, former pilot, spent some years attempting to get through to the nhs that adopting airline methodologies would save lives. They just weren’t interested and he could not get past the egos.

@SplashparkSummer the BNF is online now, there’s even an app

I can relate to everything this poor Mum has said. I too lost my daughter, age 15 due to a dr. It has broken our family. My heart goes out to her and her family.

My daughter died by suicide after having been prescribed medication she did not need by a consultant who would not offer any other options, even though the drug she prescribed is licensed to be used in the most severe case when all other options have failed. It was a sledgehammer to crack a nut and when I questioned the consultant about this drug’s (Roaccutane) links to suicide she lied and told me that suicide only happens to those who are depressed about their skin. She must have known this wasn’t the case. There are 82 cases of suicide reported on the Yellow Card Scheme, which she should have known about even though I had never heard of it.

if she had just answered me with the words “ yes, suicide can happen” I would have never agreed to my child being given that poison and she would still be here. Instead, the consultant told my then 14 year old daughter that she “wanted to put her on it before she got scarring” which terrified my daughter into agreeing to take that drug.

After my child’s death the hospital had a Serious Incident Review and decided that they weren’t at fault, going so far to include absolute blatant lies to imply my child had mental health issues and that her suicide had nothing to do with the drug they had given her. They stated things that were categorically untrue and caused us so much further upset. I knew then the type of people we were dealing with- anyone who could lie so boldly and blacken a dead child’s name to absolve themselves of blame are the absolute lowest of the low.

I live with the knowledge that my daughter died because I put my trust in a doctor. She died because of my naivety. Her death should never have happened and would never have happened had that dr not put her on a drug she didn’t need and then lie about it’s safety. I will never, ever trust a dr again. There is a special place in Hell for that doctor responsible.

I’ve been a nurse over a decade and have had the aviation talk multiple times. We regularly run scenarios with the medical team where we are encouraged to be active participants

The issue of poorly staffed hospitals at weekend and bank holidays really needs to be addressed. People don’t conveniently get ill Monday to Friday, 9 to 5! One of my parents suffered for this reason of lack of sufficient staff on a bank holiday weekend.

I've got to an age in life where I've known so many people who've died or suffered unnecessarily poor outcomes because of incompetent or dismissive doctors. I never understand how doctors can be so confident that someone has nothing wrong with them when they haven't even examined a patient, let alone carried out any tests.

I'm starting to think that each hospital and NHS trust needs some kind of Line of Duty-esque internal investigations unit, staffed by medical professionals with no fear of making enemies and unhindered by others closing ranks. Institutional changes need to be made but there also needs to be accountability and consequences for incompetent individuals.

There are increasing campaigns for public awareness of medical conditions, such as sepsis and cancers, but what good is empowering the public with that knowledge when their symptoms will be only be met with shoulder-shrugging or condescension from a doctor? The campaigns need to aim the other way, too.

I am so incredibly sorry to read this @DevastatedandDistraught - I was prescribed this same drug in my early twenties and I had a nervous breakdown and spent time in psychiatric care, after several suicide attempts. The fact that the nhs are still peddling this harmful drug rather than providing treatment such as laser treatment for acne is appalling. A sledgehammer to crack a nut indeed. Sincere condolences to you and yours xx

It broke my heart 💔

DevastatedandDistraught I am so so sorry for what happened to your daughter and the disgraceful treatment you experienced. It's so wrong and unfair.

I was sobbing reading this 💔
My child must have heard me from her sleep upstairs 😳 asking what's wrong
💔💔💔💔💔

Just appalling.
What a lovely Family.
How can they ever get beyond this breathtaking blundering by people they were meant to trust.
Literally sickening
That was a desperately hard read for any mother, any person with empathy.
The arrogance of some doctors is depressing.

Poor Martha. ⭐️

I read this this morning and cried. Such a beautifully moving, thought provoking piece. It will definitely make me think twice in future interactions with the medical profession.

I'm not in the UK but last year when I was in A&E I remember see the 'Think sepsis' posters on the wall in my cubicle and thinking Oof that sounds like me but quickly reassuring myself that I wasn't that ill. Fortunately for me the Drs quickly recognised that I did in fact have sepsis and even though I was putting on a good act of showing I was quite fine actually(God knows why I was doing that) , I was really very ill. Reading that article made me feel so grateful that the medical staff were so on the ball, it was during covid and there was no visitors allowed and although I was convinced I was grand(even though I was in HDU slipping in and out of consciousness) I was in no state at all to advocate for myself had something gone wrong. I'm so terribly sorry for Martha's family, she deserved to receive the same care as I did.

This.

I’m alive as I went back to the doctors and asked for a blood test a second time in a week, and I did need life safe treatment.
and a later life threatening illness was caught, because the same doctor, said, I’m referring you to hospital, because I didn’t think you were I’ll last time, and I was wrong.

This has just broke my heart. Poor poor Martha and her poor family.How terrified she must have been. Such a waste of a precious girl.

My baby girl died unexpectedly in hospital in 2011. I can relate to a lot of the article. There were some amazing staff but also staff I hated to see coming on duty.

I actually worked for an incompetent doctor back in the ‘70s. He was a cardiologist.
The pharmaceutical reps would bring samples to the office for him to give to his patients - instead, he took them all himself.

He showed up on my doorstep one evening out of the blue while we were entertaining my husband’s work associates, shit-faced-drunk. He staggered into my home, could barely stand up, and our guests couldn’t leave fast enough. I drove him home and my husband followed in the dr’s car. It took over an hour what normally would take 15 minutes because he couldn’t remember how to get home. I don’t even know how he knew my address or how he found my home.

Another time, one of his patients died in hospital and on his way out, he saw her family standing in the hallway — he said, “so sorry about your mom,” and kept walking but no one had told them their mother had died. He thought this was funny and laughed about it to me the next day.

I lasted four months. A heart doctor.

Yes it seems there was an issue with this particular team, they looked down on the PICU team. They considered themselves to know better.
You sometimes get a toxic culture amongst a team in a hospital, and it’s really fucking hard to address or fix that. Especially if there is a member of that team who is considered to be “a big cheese” in the hospital, or in the medical world in general.

I can’t sleep after reading this article - I am heartbroken and raging for this poor family, as well as the other cases described on here.

I had my own brush with NHS negligence and their cast-iron self preservation during the birth and postnatal care of my DD. It took 10 months of treatment for post natal traumatic stress to get past it.

Something needs to change the arrogance and the ‘closing ranks’ culture of hospitals

I've just read it, it is horrific. It is time that doctors admitted that parents know when something is seriously wrong with their child & listened. The doctors who treated her should be struck off. More & more often we read these stories of people dying from sheer negligence by the medical profession, try to complain & they close ranks.