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

I just read this and thought it was a really brave and articulate piece. Terrible to think that people were so complacent and deferent to hierarchy. I hope lots of staff at Kings are reading it this morning.

lots of hospital staff i hope are reading this, everywhere!

I've just read this & it's heartbreaking.

i hope I mean

Oh shouting “I love you” over and over because she thought/knew her child was dying, just too sad.

Marthas mum is so much more composed and respectful than I could be. It’s so hard but drs and nurses do know what they are talking about and they do see every day what the rest of us only experience in extremis but they hold our lives in their hands.

I’ve just cried all over this. Such an articulate and important piece.

Shocking similarities to this gorgeous little girl’s death a few years back, my friend’s niece. The junior doctor was laughed at by the prick of a consultant when making suggestions about Freya’s care. Massive inflated egos and the NHS hierarchy were 100% to blame on both cases. My friend and her family have done a lot to raise awareness of sepsis and I’ve seen posters and info up on the walls in my local hospital with “think sepsis” on them, but it seems the people actually responsible for doing anything about it are still just as arrogant and egotistical as ever.

When I took my XP into hospital with suspected appendicitis a couple of years ago, I had to push hard for them to give him anti biotics NOW at 3am, not wait until the morning rounds at 8am for a routine dose. When they removed it his appendix was necrotic. They would have happily left him there with a rotting organ inside him for several hours while he was feeling so ill he thought he was going to die.

They kept telling me to go home and I insisted I wasn’t leaving until I knew he was getting ABs and told them why. Those poor girls and their families

Oh god what a heartbreaking story.

But I can't help but feel that even if the parents had googled like crazy, and shouted and demanded more attention - the doctors would still have ignored them. I feel that this poor mother's 'if only' regret is misplaced here... I don't think there would have been a different outcome if she'd been more assertive. She would just have been considered a difficult parent and her opinion would have still been dismissed.

It's the patriarchical hierarchy that is dangerous here. The inability of junior doctors to challenge their superiors. And the total arrogant unwillingness of those senior consultants to consider they might be wrong.

Absolutely, completely heartbreaking.

Truly shocking but as a nurse (and I have actually worked in that unit albeit a few years ago) I can see how some of it happened. However there are many people involved in the care of all the children, and this can sometimes be where things go wrong. I am surprised PICU we're not involved sooner, the PEWS score is designed to flag up these issues. Staff there are very used to dealing with very sick children. It's sadly one of those catalogue of errors type of things. NHS staff are under immense stress, under staffing is common. It shouldn't have happened to this poor family and yet it did. Let's hope the investigation showed useful things that can and will be acted upon.

I agree Black. I don’t think even if she had personally reacted differently that it would have made a difference.

my heart goes out to the family, how shockingly awful. Poor, poor Martha.

Arrogant consultants are terrible - have had my fair share of experience over the years and they’re the pits. Think they know better than everyone else.

im so sorry for Martha and her family.

There's also PALS.

There is, but they are 9-5, M-F, so of limited help. The hospital I work at has a Matron Help phone line that is answered 24/7. I don't know how good they are, but surely this should be standard in all hospitals. There has to be a patient safety escalation route that can bypass any local stonewalling.

When my DH was 4 days post major, major surgery and had just left ICU it was obvious to both of us (knowing him, and knowing what a patient who is "going off" looks like from having worked on wards about a hundred years ago) that all was not well. The nurses just reassured us everything was fine.

Fortunately, the on call consultant surgeon took one look at him and said "I don't care what the obs say, just look at him!", sent him for an urgent CT and took him back to theatre. I truly believe he saved his life.

This is really sad. Unfortunately ego and hierarchy kills patients.

So heartbreaking.

It’s really hard to challenge medical professionals, especially when you are tired and worried. Either you assume they know best or you don’t want to be seen as neurotic or difficult.

I am lucky that I have family members who are doctors and work in our local hospital. If my children are inpatients they pop in and ask questions, or tell me what questions to ask. They aren’t paediatricians but because they are medics they are listened to. I think it does make a difference to the care the DC receive.

The only word for this is harrowing.

Such terrible, terrible neglect and mistakes. There is no comfort of any kind for Martha's poor family. Loss of a child ends more than just one life.

So sad.

We don't really have any power over our care in this country. They close ranks. Even PALS isn't really working in our interests.

And once the disaster has happens the GMC protect their own. A solicitor at the stage you are talking about wouldn't work because to prove medical negligence the patient has to have suffered harm. So if it hasn't happened yet a solicitor wouldn't get involved (unless the person is super-rich and powerful maybe)

We're just at their mercy

Heartbreaking. Why is there so much arrogance in medicine? Many of the consultants senior doctors that I've met have been very cocky and arrogant, and dismissive of input. Perhaps something needs to be considered at the medical school/training level to nip the issue in the bud earlier. Doctors need to understand lots of people out there are every bit as intelligent as them.

The staff weren't stressed in this case. The ward and intensive care were very quiet

Heartbreaking. We have a system in adults whereby a high score on observations means an automatic referral to an Intensive care outreach team. They are made aware of any poorly patients on the wards and those patients are reviewed by a member of the ITU team for support on the ward or transfer. That, in this case, the referral was not made due to the arrogance of one man is just so tragic.

"Why is there so much arrogance in medicine? Many of the consultants senior doctors that I've met have been very cocky and arrogant, and dismissive of input."

Because the cleverest high achievers are automatically assumed to go into one of a very few elite professions - medicine being the obvious one. So while you get some genuinely lovely, passionate caring people who aspire to be doctors, and achieve that - you also get very clever but not at all compassionate people who just do it because that's what you do.

I grew up with someone like that - he was a high achiever, so it was never a question that he would become a doctor, regardless of whether he was actually suited to the job. Thankfully he recognised that he wasn't particularly fond of working with people, so he took on an area of medicine that didn't require working with conscious people.

That was a very very difficult read.

I don't think there was anything more that she could have done and I found her blaming of herself absolutely heartbreaking.

To put it another way - if you're clever, you can be a doctor. But you can be a clever arrogant arsehole... and still be a doctor.

😭😭😭

A lot of doctors go into the profession for the status. Look how doctors tend to come from long lines of doctors. It's not because they all had a 'calling to help others'.