To feel sorry for this doctor?

[HarryStylesismycrack]

I am not in any way downplaying the death of that beautiful little boy and it is clearly acknowledged there were some failures by the doctor in question however AIBU to feel as though this intervention by the GMC into the independent decision making by the MPTS is concerning? It appears to me that the MPTS took into account many things, not just the outcome (which I completely acknowledge is heartbreaking), the fact that this doctor was working the job of several other medical staff in an unfamiliar environment with significant IT issues with no senior input. It feels like this doctor has been made a bit of a scapegoat for huge systemic failures.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/jack-adcock-latest-downs-syndrome-death-doctor-hadiza-babwa-garba-struck-off-general-medical-council-a8177721.html

A different link to a blog by other medical practitioners 54000doctors.org/blogs/an-account-by-concerned-uk-paediatric-consultants-of-the-tragic-events-surrounding-the-gmc-action-against-dr-bawa-garba.html

This is amazing news. I’m so pleased she’s finally been vindicated.

I had no idea and I thought I had read a lot about this. That didn’t make it into any of the articles I read.

I moan like mad when I am admitted and have to hand over all my prescription medication and then wait for a nurse to bring it round, but I guess this is exactly why.

The unprescribed drug could quite possibly have contributed. It was prescribed by the GP to be given at home but was not on the hospital prescription chart and the doctor had no idea he was taking it. She said if she had been told that he was usually on it then she would have said he should not be given it while poorly.

She made an error and didn’t recognise the importance of the raised lactate but hundreds if not thousands of doctors make similar errors ever year....not always with such a result. However it’s widely recognised that sepsis is frequently missed.

For the posters who are blaming the doctor, if this type of working environment is not unusual, your junior doctor working conditions are beyond shit and unsafe and there will be more to follow.

Unfortunately I think there will.

I am so pleased with todays result. She had a completely unblemished record until she came back from maternity leave to a new hospital, no induction, covering 100 patients, with inadequate nursing staffing, IT failures, inadequate and unsupportive senior cover. Yes, resus was briefly paused but all the experts accept that did not cause or expedite death. Yes, she was delayed reviewing investigations because she was dealing with other sick children, and the system to alert her to abnormal or completed investigations had broken down. Jack was given medication Dr BG had intentionally omitted from his drug chart as it could make him worse.
Anyone who thinks she is incompetent / should be locked up etc needs to read the facts. The BBC article "struck off for honest mistakes" (about the panorama programme) is pretty good. Jack, his family and Dr BG were sadly let down by the system. Scapegoating one doctor and one nurse does nothing to address these systemic failures and hopefully this ruling will be the first step of that.

Oh I didn’t realise she’d aftually said he shouldn’t take it. I’d got the impression she didn’t know about it but might be wrong. That’s the impression I got from what the doctor said in panorama tonight and what I’ve previously read.

Her consultant knew the gas result though and still didn’t come in, even though she was crazy busy with the other patients including doing a lumbar puncture

It’s worth pointing out as well that this was 2011. In the years since there’s been a lot of work done on sepsis screening tools etc. She should have seen the signs of sepsis, she says that herself but the landscape doctors are working in today is somewhat more sepsis aware.

She was and is competent. She was abandoned by an underfunded health care system so she couldn't do her job safely. You think one junior doctor covering the work of four doctors and a consultant is acceptable? It's not.

I spent 5 weeks in hospital with DS. I found it hard to understand the hours that the junior doctors and consultants worked. They always seemed to be there. Early mornings, late nights. Which as the parent of patient was great but I worried for them and their family life. I work in a professional job, I have to be qualified and I work a lot of hours - I'm working now - although having a short MN break - but bugger me, I don't have to work 18 hours a day, 6 days a week making life and death decisions. Who the fuck could actually think straight and sensibly doing that?

The parents were insistent that another doctor be asked about the drug, they refused to take no for an answer apparently. It wasn't clear whether or not someone else said yes or if they just gave it to him anyway.

Good point by northern Lurker. We’ve only had specific sepsis training at annual updates in maybe the last 5 years. Certainly not in 2012. Back then I don’t think sepsis six was a thing, we had no sepsis bundles and no colour flagged TPR charts with an overall score on the bottom like we do now.

@nicoandtheniners I read the article by the BBC (but havent watched panorama) which said:

"But Dr Bawa-Garba says she didn’t want him to have the enalapril, because he was dehydrated and it might have made his blood pressure drop too much.
Because of this, she says, she left it off his drug chart."

I read somewhere else that what she wasnt aware of was a random policy at that hospital where regular medication could be given without prescription. A policy which quickly changed after this incident.

The mum said on panorama that the nurse rang another doctor and asked about the drug. Nurse came back and said doctor had said the nurse couldn’t give it as not on chart but if mum wanted to she could. I think this doctor had not met jack and wouldn’t have been aware of the details.

I'm very glad that she has been allowed to return to work. I'm sure this has ruined her life to some extent too . I trained at and worked at the hospital where this happened and it has always been bloody awful. I can absolutely understand how this could have happened.It is somewhat improved now and yes there has been huge amounts of sepsis awareness training in the past few years.

Well that hospitals policy of being able to have regular medication without it being on prescription was shit. I’ve never known that where I work. How crazy. Surely it should be obvious that people will come into hospital with complications which may contraindicate their usual meds?

Exactly @Nicoandtheniners - why would Dr BG even consider such a crazy policy was in place

trollbuster _ For similar reasons I will never encourage any of my kids to follow my nursing career .

the government is wholly responsible for his death in a failing crumbling system that is fast becoming not fit for purpose.

THIS ^

Absolutely the right decision

Well said Trollbuster.

Why was that evidence not heard at her original trial?

Poor woman, so glad she won her appeal.
People expect humanity from their doctors, doctors deserve to be treated like humans too.
The conditions she was working under that day were horrific, it disgusts me how the Tories are running the NHS into the ground.

A heartbreaking situation for all affected. However she was not at fault. We cannot allow HCPs to be demonised or blamed in situations they should never be in