8 Year Old Starves To Death After Dental Operation

Sasha

Sasha

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How very sad. Seems like there was a failure of care all around.

Sophie Waller, 8, starved to death after dental operation

Full article here: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article5695967.ece
An eight-year-old girl with a fear of dentists starved to death because she would not open her mouth after she had eight milk teeth removed, an inquest was told yesterday.

Sophie Waller refused to eat, drink or speak after her teeth were removed, and died at home from kidney failure caused by dehydration, 23 days after the operation.
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Mrs Waller said she had tried to get Sophie readmitted but was referred to Kerry Davidson, a child psychologist, who assured her that her daughter would be all right and made an appointment to see her the following week.
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“I got so worried I decided to take her to the hospital. We were on the way out the door when they told us not to come in. The hospital would not do anything and child welfare would not do anything.

“Sophie’s death could easily have been avoided if we had just got her back to hospital instead of listening to that woman, if I had said, ‘No, we’re going anyway’.”
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V

VentMedic

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“I got so worried I decided to take her to the hospital. We were on the way out the door when they told us not to come in. The hospital would not do anything and child welfare would not do anything.
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Who told the mother not to come in? Who is "they"?

The mother is a "nursery nurse" who should know something about medicine and hospitals. Pull her license first.

If the child displayed these emotional problems in the hosptial, a peg probably should have been placed (with probably more emotional problems) until someone in that family became stable enough psychologically to help the child physically and emotionally.
 
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Veneficus

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VentMedic said:
Who told the mother not to come in? Who is "they"?

The mother is a "nursery nurse" who should know something about medicine and hospitals. Pull her license first.

If the child displayed these emotional problems in the hosptial, a peg probably should have been placed (with probably more emotional problems) until someone in that family became stable enough psychologically to help the child physically and emotionally.
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She probably would have opened her mouth if somebody stuck an NG tube in her nose. Don't get me started on the value (or lack there of) of psychologists.
 
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VentMedic

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Veneficus said:
She probably would have opened her mouth if somebody stuck an NG tube in her nose. Don't get me started on the value (or lack there of) of psychologists.
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Apparently she tolerated the NG for a few days.


She soon needed a feeding tube because she stopped eating and drinking.”
Sophie was kept in hospital for 11 days and fed through a tube before being sent home.
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Veneficus

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VentMedic said:
Apparently she tolerated the NG for a few days.
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Why would you send her home if she still wasn't eating? Now I am really confused.
 
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VentMedic

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Either the reporter seriously botched the story by not checking facts or this child had some people acting in her "best interest", including parents and members of the healthcare system, that were idiots.
 
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Veneficus

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now I am started

VentMedic said:
Either the reporter seriously botched the story by not checking facts or this child had some people acting in her "best interest", including parents and members of the healthcare system, that were idiots.
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I have spent some time in a UK hospital. (not as the patient) While I am sure there are substandard providers everywhere, I cannot think of one physician I met there that would have a pt on a tube for feeding and not watch that kid physically eat an appropriate amount and document it just as much as we would in the US before signing a discharge.Which would assuredly say "If this changes come right back." I wonder if those were part of Dr. Ellis's instructions? Seems reasonable it would be, but even still if it wasn't, at what point in skin flaking off, hair falling out, do you call 999?

I think you are right, there is probably some un(der)reported part of the story. But if there is a breakdown I think it is here:

"Kerry Davidson, a child psychologist, who assured her that her daughter would be all right and made an appointment to see her the following week."

(Because we all know not drinking or eating for a week is nothing to worry about.)

“I was phoning Kerry Davidson every day, sometimes twice a day, to say how unwell she looked.

“I kept asking her to come round but she said she would next week and there was nothing to worry about."

(WTF is a child psychologist going to do? "yep she looks bad." A person would get better care from an Amazon witchdoctor than a psychologist. I very much doubt some systematic desentization was going to help here.)

“I got so worried I decided to take her to the hospital. We were on the way out the door when they told us not to come in. The hospital would not do anything and child welfare would not do anything."

(I cannot possibly see an A&E doc or nurse telling a family not to bring their emaciated kid to the hospital. I cannot see a British medic not looking at that kid and taking them in.)

Maybe the breakdown is NHS pays for psychologists at all.
 
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