Scandal-hit hospital left child dehydrated after heart surgery, sucking on wet wipes until his death

Wednesday, November 09, 2016 by: J. D. Heyes
Tags: socialized medicine, medical failure, scandal

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(NaturalNews) Socialized medicine around the world is failing to deliver on its promise of universal, high-quality healthcare for less money, and that is especially true in the United Kingdom, despite the country's continued reliance on a failed model.

That was summed up again recently, and in a most tragic way, as reported by the UK's Daily Mail.

The site noted that a 4-year-old boy died after having heart surgery and being so badly neglected afterward that he had to suck on moisture from disposable wet wipes because he was dehydrated.

A government oversight official found that hospital staff "failed" Sean Turner, who died in March 2012 from a brain hemorrhage following a cardiac arrest six weeks after he underwent corrective heart surgery.

The Parliamentary Health Service Ombudsman's inquiry found evidence of "service failure," and that the Bristol Children's Hospital was guilty of "maladministration."

The finding led University Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust to issue an apology, saying it was "sorry" for the failure to properly care for a child whose condition was so obviously critical.

Series of failures are monumental

In all, the government watchdog found 22 failings, and noted that the young patient was not provided with "the best possible chance of survival" by medical staff assigned to attend him. At one point his parents found him so severely dehydrated that he was sucking on wet wipes for fluid.

The paper reported that the indictments of the hospital were listed in a 223-page report, which noted that the boy's fluid levels were not properly monitored. The failures that led to his death were described as "systemic."

The ombudsman's report noted that Sean was allowed to become "significantly hypovolemic" – or suffer a serious drop in body fluids. In fact, he was so clinically dehydrated that his life was put at additional risk. What's more, despite his advancing state of dehydration, the dosage of a diuretic medication he was being given – a side effect of which is dehydration – was increased.

The hospital also misled Sean's parents about its high dependency capabilities. In one incident, the paper noted, hospital staff gave Sean a clot-busting treatment for three days instead of the recommended six hours, while failing at the same time to stop a blood-thinning medication he was also being given.

The ombudsman's report claimed that Sean ought to have been moved to intensive care when his condition began to deteriorate, but for some reason he remained in a non-high dependency ward instead. Plus, his anticoagulation treatment, which reduces the body's ability to form blood clots, was not properly monitored within stated guidelines.

At one point, practitioners suspected that Sean was suffering from a brain bleed, but the ombudsman found that an inappropriate delay prevented him from receiving a timely CT scan. And his blood thinners were also not halted, which likely only added to the brain bleed.

But what will change in Britain's failing system?

"We find these failings mean that the care and treatment the trust provided for Sean and the support Mr and Mrs Turner received fell so far below the applicable standards and established good practice that it amounted to service failure," the ombudsman's report stated.

"[Sean] did not receive the best post-operative care and this in turn meant he was not given the best possible chance of survival," it continued.

The ombudsman's report noted further that Sean's parents were made to suffer – and are continuing to suffer – needlessly, and that the suffering is likely to only be compounded in the months ahead by the "uncertainty" of not knowing whether their son would have lived.

The watchdog noted that Sean's parents, Steve and Yolanda, have blamed doctors and nursing staff for their son's death. They have contacted NHS England, which has launched an investigation.

Which won't change anything, of course, since Britain has no intention of changing its failing socialized medicine scheme any time soon.

Sources:

DailyMail.co.uk

NaturalNews.com

NaturalNews.com