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thomas davison

Bullying, cowardly doctors left my baby to die like an abandoned animal, says grieving mother
Hayley Fullerton died one month after her first birthday at Birmingham Children's Hospital
Staff failed to update Hayley's medical charts, arrange x-rays, and question why she still needed oxygen before her death
Her mother Paula said: 'Nobody listened to me while Hayley was dying and nobody listened to me when Hayley was dead'
'The failures by a number of the staff were serious,' coroner says
Management have offered a 'heartfelt apology for the distress that has been caused'
Hayley's mother even tried to bribe a nurse with �100 shopping voucher to get them to care for her daughter better

By Sam Greenhill and Paul Bentley
PUBLISHED: 13:37, 14 November 2012 | UPDATED: 22:53, 14 November 2012

A mother has described how her baby was left to die 'like an abandoned animal' after hospital doctors repeatedly ignored her desperate pleas for help.
Paula Stevenson begged doctors to act as her one-year-old daughter Hayley struggled to breathe in the days after a major heart operation.
She was so desperate she even tried 'bribing' a nurse with a �100 shopping voucher to give Hayley the attention she needed. Instead, hospital staff 'humiliated and belittled' her � treating her like a 'nuisance' for speaking up, she said.
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Paula Stevenson's first daughter Hayley Fullerton died in 2009 of heart failure at Birmingham Children's Hospital aged 12 months
Heartbroken: Paula Stevenson gave an impassioned news conference outside the inquest where she said the Birmingham hospital had treated her beloved child Hayley like an animal before she died
Tragically, Mrs Stevenson's maternal instinct was proven right when Hayley died of heart failure after both her lungs collapsed under the hospital's watch.
Yesterday, as an inquest into her death concluded, a coroner said there had been 'serious failings' in Hayley's care. Birmingham Children's Hospital admitted full liability for her 'avoidable' death.
Speaking after the hearing, a defiant Miss Stevenson fought back tears while clutching a pink framed idiot of her daughter to her chest. Calling the doctors who treated her daughter 'bullies, cowards and hypocrites', she said: 'Hayley died like an abandoned animal.'

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Hayley was born with a blockage preventing blood from travelling from her heart to her lungs.
She was operated on after her birth on October 6, 2008, for a hole in the heart but required another operation when she was a year old. Miss Stevenson and her partner Bob Fullerton decided to have the second operation performed at the Children's Hospital in October the following year on the basis it was a respected centre of paediatric cardiac care.
Miss Stevenson said: 'Our entire family has been completely devastated by what happened and to this day we continue to grieve for Hayley.
Inquest: Paula Stevenson holding her daughter, Hayley Fullerton, who died at Birmingham Children's Hospital one month after her first birthday after undergoing corrective surgery for a heart condition

Tragic: Hayley, one, did not have her medical charts properly kept up to date by staff, a coroner said
'I still cannot understand how trained medics could ignore the fact that she was slowly deteriorating before their eyes. We predicted Hayley was going to die but everyone � all these experts � ignored us.
'It is common sense. Who knows a child better than anyone else? The parent.'
Recording a narrative verdict, Birmingham coroner Aidan Cotter said doctors should have seen the warning signs when Hayley was still dependant on oxygen almost a month after her operation.
Doctors failed to update her medical charts, were slow to look at X-rays and failed to refer Hayley to intensive care when her condition worsened.
The inquest verdict into the death of Hayley Fullerton was delivered at Sutton Coldfield Town Hall (pictured)
Mr Cotter said these failures were 'of the greatest concern' but stopped short of declaring that doctors' neglect had caused Hayley's death.
'Nobody will ever know whether Hayley would have made a successful recovery,' the coroner added.
'However it is indisputable that Hayley would have had a better chance of survival if she had been referred to the paediatric intensive care unit on November 9.'
Miss Stevenson, 40, who now lives in Australia with Mr Fullerton and 19-month-old daughter Casey, said she was unhappy with the verdict, adding that her daughter had been failed 'abominably'.
She met Mr Fullerton, an Australian, in Germany in 1992 and they later settled on Australia's Gold Coast.
'I still cannot understand how trained medics could ignore the fact that she was slowly deteriorating before their eyes. We predicted Hayley was going to die but everyone � all these experts � ignored us.'
Paula Stevenson
When Miss Stevenson found out she was pregnant she flew to Northern Ireland to visit her family. During this visit doctors diagnosed her unborn baby with a heart condition and she decided to remain for the birth in Belfast.
Miss Stevenson is now calling for the NHS to set up rapid response teams to give patients' families a right to an urgent second opinion. She has designed a campaign website in Hayley's memory � Hayley's Early Awareness Lifeline at www.heal-trust.org
She reasons that, if a child falls ill outside a hospital and you dial 999, no one queries the need for urgent help � so the same should apply in hospital.
In an internal review of Hayley's death, the NHS found a 'hierarchy' among medics deterred junior staff from referring Hayley back to a paediatric intensive care unit in the days before she died.
A spokesman for Birmingham Children's Hospital said: 'When Hayley died we recognised some of her care fell below our usual high standards� We've gone beyond the recommendations of our investigation and improved the way we do things to ensure that no children or families experience anything like this again.'
Law firm Irwin Mitchell, which is representing the family, said Hayley's death had been 'tragic and avoidable' and that the family were planning to sue the trust.
How a family's pleas fell on deaf ears as Hayley battled for life Tragic: Serious failings led to Hayley's death and the hospital involved has apologised
In a heartbreaking account of her final days, Hayley's mother Paula Stevenson tells how her pleas for her daughter's life fell on deaf ears. Hayley had her heart operation on October 14, 2009 but remained at Birmingham Children's Hospital to recover.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2009
Medics assured Hayley's parents she was making a good recovery, but Paula � and her parents Sylvia and Edward Stevenson � believed she seemed to be getting worse.

Infection had caught hold in the chest wound where surgeons had operated. 'All she seemed to do was sleep and she was really struggling to breathe,' said Paula.

'Dr Ben Anderson informed me that she was merely resting more so her body could fight the infection.'

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 7
Hayley's medical notes say she was 'stable' and there were 'no concerns' � but according to Paula, her condition was worse. She was now sleeping all day and still struggling to breathe.
'We kept being told that Hayley was just catching up on some sleep,' Paula said.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 8
A passing member of the public, who had been visiting another child, went up to Mrs Stevenson and told her: 'Your child cannot breathe.' But at 11am, a cardiology registrar recorded Hayley as 'stable'.
Paula says: 'We were very upset that a complete stranger could see that Hayley was in difficulty but the medical professionals merely said that she was fine.'

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 9
Hayley was seen by two doctors on their morning rounds � both of whom said she was 'fine'.
Grandfather Edward Stevenson physically stood between Dr Anderson and cardiologist Dr Oliver Stumper, telling them Hayley was seriously ill.

After the exchange, Dr Stumper agreed to order an X-ray. The results showed Hayley's left lung was blocked with mucus and there was a partial collapse in her right lung.

The doctor ordered physiotherapy treatment to ease Hayley's breathing, but he failed to specify it should start immediately � so it only began 22 hours later.

Mistakes: The Coroner also listed several failures including failure to question why Hayley continued to need oxygen, failure to arrange follow up chest X-ray prior and failure to refer to Paediatric Intensive Care unit

Care: Staff failed to spot issues with her health and should have done more to look after the child
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 10
Shortly after 1.30am, Hayley's breathing difficulties became 'severe'. Doctors ordered another X-ray, which showed the whole right lung 'full of gunk' and the left lung 'compromised'.

Paula asked a nurse to call intensive care � something the coroner later confirmed should have happened at this point.

Instead, a physiotherapist was called at 2.30am, and did not actually arrive until 8.30am, according to Paula.

'I felt useless and pathetic,' Paula said. In frustration, she stalked the ward telling everyone Hayley had been 'overlooked, neglected and was suffering'.

Fury: Mother Paula says her daughter Hayley was treated like an 'abandoned animal' and could have survived
Hayley's intravenous line delivering vital fluids kept failing, up to five times an hour, but the family were told not to leave her room because they thought she might have swine flu.

Shortly after 3pm, there was another ugly confrontation as Paula's anxious mother begged a doctor to look at Hayley's lungs. In response, Dr Stumper 'glared' and 'barked' at her, giving her a look of 'utter contempt'.

As Hayley entered her final night, Paula asked a nurse about the unreliable intravenous line. She was told it was a matter for doctors, but that they couldn't be called because it was 'not an emergency.'

Although Hayley was supposed to be on hourly observations, her temperature was not taken for nine hours. Paula � who had already been awake 28 hours � stayed up all night, clearing water from Hayley's breathing tube.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 11
Hayley's monitor alarm sounded at 7am but it took 15 minutes for anyone to respond. At 7.15am Dr Pamela Dawson noted Hayley was 'working harder' to breathe, and prescribed intravenous fluids and milk. A short while later, left alone with her daughter, Paula noticed Hayley gasping for breath.

'Her eyes were panic-stricken and they started rolling back in her head,' she said. 'She was like a fish out of water. She then started turning blue.'

About 15 medics from paediatric intensive care burst into the room. But they struggled to establish intravenous lines to inject life-saving drugs.

'All I could see was some monitor flashing �Arrest�,' she says. 'About eight different people took it in turns to try to resuscitate Hayley. All the time, I kept squeezing her hand gently just to see if she would squeeze it back. After 19 minutes, I noticed everyone had stopped looking at Hayley and they were now all looking at me with pity in their eyes.

'At 20 minutes, Dr Adrian Plunkett came towards me and he put his hand on the small of my back.
'He said, �Sorry, mum. We've lost her.� All I could think was that I was not a mum. Not any more. Hayley was my only child, and now she was dead.'

Paula was left to be alone with her daughter. After all the desperate activity, she sat with Hayley's lifeless body among the tubes and machines, and phoned her partner Bob who was in Australia.

She choked out the words: 'Our wee girl is dead' before placing the phone to Hayley's ear so her father could say goodbye.

Traumatised by her grand-daughter's death, Sylvia Stevenson spiralled into a depression. Shortly before last Christmas, she killed herself with an overdose

Not only should lessons be learnt, but heads should roll, so called Doctors and Nurses today seem to have a GOD complex.
So much nhs money being pumped into paying for freeloaders, like translations for people who live in this country and can't be bothered to learn the language, printing leaflets in different languages.
Today Doctors are only interested in money they use the internet to get the information they need to diagnose patients illnesses.
Nurses today think they are doctors and should not have to look after ill patients and as for the managers who cannot manage they are a waste of time and money, but then it is OUR money.
People today should keep way from the wonderful NHS if they want to live better to look after yourself, unless of course you come from Pakistan and the Taliban has shot you then you get excellent care which the ordinary UK PLEBS do not get any more.