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

Since I've been ill & become disabled I question everything a doctor tells me. My mum thinks I'm being rude when I ask questions & disagree with them but she is of the generation that consider doctors on the level of God's.

Such a sad story, what a poor family their lives forever changed. 💔For so many drs to make mistakes worries me so much, it not like it was one or two who examined Martha. Someone should have picked this up, challenged this and not been scared to do so.

If I were to mention all the times I've been dismissed, talked down, to argued with It would be a very long book. Just recently got a pay out for NHS damages but it does not make up for the suffering I went through and that was only 1 condition they got wrong. over 10 years to diagnose one condition and in the end I researched myself pre internet days in the local library and I was right.

Now my daughter is in a brain injury rehab unit and the consultant is horrible, arrogant and causes me extreme anxiety. I have asked for a meeting and they suggested Zoom - I can't face it. I am going to email my questions but this is causing me extreme anxiety too.

Martha's death sadly was caused by this very attitude I mention. trying to argue whether nicely or shouting rarely achieves a good outcome in these situations. Although I did once say to a consultant 'why are you so rude?' and he backed down after that and was nice as pie next time I saw him.

I say Google the hell out of anything told you, if I had I wouldn't be in both of the situations I am in now.

I had sepsis twice last year because of a GP and hospital doctors not taking obvious symptoms seriously. Fortunately, I was fifty miles from home when I got the most serious bout and the heavily criticised hospital I took myself to recognised what was happening and put me on IV antibiotics.
A relative was in my local A&E a month ago and a man whose wife had stroke symptoms (unable to use her left arm and leg and the left side of her face fallen) was still waiting to be seen four hours after arrival.
The NHS is not the only organisation with a toxic respect for hierarchy and there are many examples of repeat offenders but whenever a blame culture incentivises people to close ranks (some of Martha's records apparently disappeared) the outcomes for service users will suffer.
Yet I am yet to see an example of a whistleblower being rewarded for their efforts.

This is a tragic story. It shouldn't have happened.
However, hindsight is always 20/20 vision.
I don't really see the point in publishing this rather subjective account of the poor child's experience.
Medical people are not superhumans, they make mistakes, as we all do. Let's hope lessons will be learned that will benefit other patients in the future.

And, unbelievable as it seems to us now, neither Paul nor I knew that intensive care was the right place for Martha to be. We didn’t know enough to argue, to challenge, to insist that she should be moved there. So we ended up failing to fulfil the most essential duty of parents – to protect our child when she was in danger. The guilt will always be with me

That paragraph is so sad. Why should we have to know more than medically trained people? So sad that this is so often the case. They say not to look things up on the internet, but even without doing that, some things that seem obvious to almost everyone, such as the sepsis rash, are still missed by doctors. She even questioned them about it and suggested it, but still they missed it.

I lost all faith in the medical system when my son nearly died as a newborn due to a serious misdiagnosis. I also nearly died in childbirth due to concerns being dismissed.

I now challenge medical professionals and ask as many questions as I can. I will never lose that anxiety.

My heart started racing as I read along. An absolutely devastating read. My heart goes out to the family, and poor little Martha.

My son has an ongoing medical condition and our concerns have been dismissed by so many specialists. We persisted as we had the time and money to do so and we finally have a treatment plan that is working and a specialist who is willing to engage with us. It’s taken 10k to get to this point. It shouldn’t be like this.

This account backs up the coroner's report/inquest which was reported on in the spring.www.theguardian.com/society/2022/mar/04/girl-13-likely-to-have-survived-if-moved-to-intensive-care-coroner-rules The doctors concerned admit their errors. And that's one of the points of the article - that doctors make mistakes so shouldn't be treated as infallible.

I read the article earlier today. Heartbreaking. That poor family.

In my Australian state, we have Ryan’s Rule. It does give people a chance to force a second opinion. Of course, the patient or family have to recognise something is amiss and be assertive and informed enough to trigger it.

www.murphys-law.com.au/blog/ryans-rule-queensland/

Bore off!!!

The family have every right to share Martha’s story.

This happened in a leading teaching hospital! The signs of sepsis were there. They ignored them because they thought they knew best.

This is devastatingly awful. So sad and distressing to read. Much love to Merope Mills and family I’m so sorry they had to go through that. What a nightmare beyond all comprehension.
I also feel angry I hope changes are made.

@ITalktotheTrees

So heartbreaking but I am glad she has told the story for others to learn from. Really so tragic.

@eomeoni

"The family have every right to share Martha’s story."

The only reason this story got in the press is because the author is a journalist writing for a national newspaper that wants to bash the government via the NHS.

"The signs of sepsis were there. They ignored them because they thought they knew best."

Doctors make judgement calls every day. Sometimes they get it wrong. There is no knowing if being in PICU would have had a better outcome.

Poor Martha, and her poor parents. That was heartbreaking to read. I can't stop crying.

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

We had such trust, we feel such fools’: how shocking hospital mistakes led to our daughter’s death.

…

I am a fierce supporter of the principles of the NHS and realise how many excellent doctors are practising today. There’s no need for the usual political arguments: as the hospital in question has confirmed to me, what happened to Martha had nothing to do with insufficient resources or overstretched doctors and nurses; it had nothing to do with austerity or cuts, or a health service under strain.

…

Severe sepsis is most often dangerous when patients don’t make it to intensive care, where it can be treated with powerful drugs and frequent interventions. Martha could easily have gone to paediatric intensive care (PICU), which was just down the corridor and had beds free. But her consultants preferred not to involve PICU.

…

“I’m worried Martha is going to go into septic shock on a bank holiday weekend and none of you will be here.” The consultant ran her finger down a screen of numbers. “I’m not worried about sepsis,” she said. When I went back to the cubicle, Martha looked at me with narrowed eyes. “I heard you talking about septic shock.” “Don’t worry, my love,” I said. “I just need to make sure they’re thinking of everything.” The consultant’s parting words as she left were: “It’s just a normal infection.”

…

King’s later produced a Serious Incident report into why Martha died and its writer told me that she should, at this time, have been moved to PICU.

…

But Prof Checked Shirt, in charge that day, didn’t once consider such a move. Tellingly, the report revealed high-status consultants on Rays of Sunshine (“level sevens” in the ranking of seniority) had a dismissive attitude to less senior colleagues in PICU (“level fives”). This made them reluctant to do the right thing and involve intensive care: Martha died in part because of inflated egos.

…

When Prof Checked Shirt made his routine call from home that evening to the head of PICU, he painted only a partial picture of Martha’s condition. He did not mention her previous bleeding or the fact that the rash she had was new. He was relaying her details “for information only”; intensive care “categorically” should not pay Martha a bedside visit, he said: “no review was needed” and it would increase my anxiety. The hospital’s policy dictates that parents being worried is a reason to escalate; he decided the opposite.
The head of PICU could reply only that there was a bed available if needed. He was asked at the inquest whether, had he been given the full picture by Prof Checked Shirt, Martha would have been moved to intensive care. He answered: “Without a doubt, 100 per cent.”

…

Other consultants were also at fault: the hospital report concluded that on at least five occasions Martha’s care should have involved PICU. Yet at no stage did any doctor let me know that she was in real trouble. I was kept in the dark and condescended to. The focus on my – justified – anxiety reeks of misogyny.

I remember my mum taking me to the GP when I was 7 with another bout of tonsillitis (I was a regular sufferer). The GP asked what was wrong and my mum said “she has tonsillitis again.” The (old, white, male) GP gave her the most sneering look and said “oh really, diagnosed her yourself have you? And when did you get your medical degree?”

My mum was right of course, and his attitude baffles me even more as an adult - tonsillitis is hardly difficult to diagnose, I only have to glance in my daughters mouth to know when she has it - the yellow spots on the tonsils are usually a pretty good clue! I still remember this incident so clearly over 30 years later, I think it was the first time I’d ever seen someone be rude to my mum!

The author of this article, Merope Mills, is the mother of Martha Mills, the child who died. She is very, very brave to write in such detail about her daughter’s death. It is something so incredibly painful and traumatic. My heart just goes out to her.

You are of course correct sometimes one doctor does get it wrong what’s on usual in this case is for so many medics to get it wrong and to go against their better judgement I don’t believe for a minute that the nurses weren’t aware she was deteriorating.

my aunt nursed 50 years ago and she would often be pointing out to the doctors that actually perhaps that decimal point ought not to go there on prescriptions, to try and help them save face. It’s common knowledge that they’re far from bloody superhero’s.

Doctors should never ignore parental instinct - we know our own children so well. I knew when my son was properly ill simply because he took himself to bed in the day - this had never happened before.
similarly, my other, very stoic son was awake and crying in pain every hour over night which showed me he was properly ill (he had a serious eye socket infection) even though he had been ice skating the day before. The deterioration was quick.
Luckily in both these scenarios (one in U.K. one in Australia) Drs did take me seriously and there was no poor outcome.
My heart absolutely goes out to these parents (and other parents with similar, unreported stories). There were so many opportunities for a different outcome.
I also hate the “oh you’re informed” as if that’s a bad thing. When I was having my first baby I was asking lots of questions and the consultant said “are you in the medical field” and I said “yes, I’m a clinical negligence lawyer” “oh”.
I had dealt with a number of cases where obvious clinical problems were presenting during labour and were ignored, leading to devastating outcomes. I had a number of these (decelerations, slow labour, failure to progress) and luckily they were acted on.

Just because the mother is a journalist doesn’t mean she can’t share what happens to Martha.

From what the corner said, Martha would have survived if she had been moved to PICU earlier.

Omg this is horrendous. I'm so sorry for your loss. I absolutely agree consultants should be struck off of negligence!! They literally hold peoples' lives in their hands, so their mistakes cause absolute devastation and this "lessons will be learned" nonsense is just a slap in the face to families whose lives these doctors ruined.

Absolutely heartless response to a story that is everyone's worst nightmare. That poor mother writes beautifully and eloquently and the story is absolutely horrific. It should absolutely be talked and written about! Doctors need to be named and shamed for this type of behaviour (unfortunately she hasn't named the individuals - probably due to upcoming litigation). I hope (although) doubt they get struck off