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THE MIDLAND REGIONAL Hospital in Portlaoise has apologised to the parents of an eight-year-old boy who died just 18 hours after being discharged from its Emergency Department.
The HSE confirmed that an apology had been read out in the High Court today, and that the case with Richard De Souza’s parents had been settled.
Speaking to reporters outside the courtroom, solicitor Ann Nolan said the family still has a lot of questions about their son’s treatment as they believe his death could have been prevented.
Nolan noted that it has been a “troubling and difficult time” for Ramon and Flavia De Souza, adding that Richard’s death has had a devastating effect on the Brazilian community in Ireland.
According to RTÉ’s News at One, Justice Mary Irvine approved a settlement of €160,000 in an action taken by the family for wrongful death and nervous shock.
The court heard that Richard died from toxic shock after developing a secondary, streptococcal infection. He had initially presented to the hospital because he was suffering from chicken pox.
The family live in Athy, county Kildare where Ramon works as a jockey.
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An utter disgrace…Any chance the people that were shouting for an inquiry into a recent similar death at an Irish hospital will now come out of the woodwork and ask for an inquiry into this terrible tragedy…Our health system should be condemned as not been fit for purpose and should be restructured from the very bottom to the very top and that includes the current Minister
No chance at all. They didn’t ask for one for Niall Comerford either
Parents always know when their children are sick, the hospital staff should always listen to them as well.
We should stand our ground when told its ok go home when we know something’s not right
They would call security and have you removed if you stood your ground, been in that position when a consultant tried to set my sons dislocated shoulder without anaesthetic and I asked him to stop as my son was in agony ( had been through the process on many previous occasions always with pain relief), the consultant was highly irritated and asked me to leave, two of the nurses told me no one had ever challenged this man before and they were pleased I had done so, one told me it was very cruel to attempt the procedure without pain relief.
How come the settlement for this is so low compared to millions that similar cases receive?
It is because it resulted in the child’s death. Had the child still been alive and suffer from a disability due to the actions of the hospital they would have received more.
Shocking
Because when a doctor is found to be in the wrong and a person has died there’s a set amount to be payed out its called tear money I found with my son Mary harney brought it to law in around 2000 not sure about the date
Sara
Of course. That makes sense. Still think the number is a bit low, but then how do you out a price on a life?
The poor parents of this kid. I would be fit to kill someone if it was my son
An apology, so thats alright then…
Ditto Paul !!
What else can they do? This really is an awful event but what else is there for the hospital to do other than apologise and pay compensation?
They can make sure it never happens again .. What good is an apology to the family who lost their child .
Do you think that they haven’t put procedures in place so that it doesn’t happen again? Emergency departments across the country are understaffed and an incident like this was bound to happen.
I wonder if you’d say that to Praveen Halappanavar
What good is money to the family who lost their child ?.
That is a completely separate issue, just because there was the same cause of death doesn’t mean there was the same contributing factors which resulted in the death. Comments like that are useless and bare no relevance, especially when you don’t seem to know what your talking about.
A failure to diagnose a potentially fatal condition led to the death of a patient. Seems like a fairly similar contributing factor to me.
Your statement;
“What else can they do? This really is an awful event but what else is there for the hospital to do other than apologise and pay compensation?”
Is equally in/appropriate in either case
“Devastating effect on the Brazilian community in Ireland”
I would think such shocking awful news had a devastating effect on every community in Ireland.
I wonder why she made such an exclusionist remark
Very good point Larry.
Disgraceful. Heads should have rolled
FFS…… strep infection – not like its a weird unknown disease. Surely a simple culture and sensitivity would have solved the antibiotic choice and correct treatment. That really shouldn’t be a issue in this day and age that kids actually die of a gram pos infection like this. Jaysus if it was 60 years ago maybe…..
Niamh, a very simplistic comment. Jumping to many conclusions from very little information. Firstly the court heard that it was a secondary infection… That means that he had a primary infection to begin with(chicken pox) in this instance… Which could delay a diagnosis of septicaemia- for example the absence of a rash(an unreliable sign) , already raised markers of infection and vital signs that were abnormal to begin with assuming he had a primary infection. It is not a case of doing cultures as the treatment of bacterial septicaemia is immediate high dose broad spectrum antibiotics as this condition is one where time is critical-where the window to make a difference with antibiotics and other supports is small.
So in other words all they had to do was send him home on a weeks worth of augmentin just to be on the safe side, ‘cos c+s would have been too time consuming. Seriously – if they were not at fault, they wouldn’t have paid out. I’ve had issues before when a hospital refused to give me antibiotics before, saying they wanted to do a lumbar puncture before ruling out meningitis. And there I am waiting for one for 36 hours to get the bleedin procedure. My point is – give the amoxyclav or whatever the hell you doctors give nowadays just in case – whats the harm? (assuming pen allergies not an issue) The ab resistance argument won’t work here btw
Immanuel , what you just said above is what I was told by a doctor , I took my sons file to the uk and had 2 doctors check it and gave me a different awanser , first I took my son to a hospital and the doctor sent him home with a viral bug I asked the doctor to check for meningitis he told us not to be silly and sent us away 6 hours later we took him back and a different doctor seen him and spotted Wat was wrong straight away , the uk doctors could not believe by reading his files that he was sent away the first time , this was not the first or last case in tallagh hospital so when you say there’s a window of opportunity I think your very wrong , it’s the difference between a good doctor and a bad one
1. I’m not saying that there was no error involved in this case. There clearly was something that was missed and the boy died. My point was that his chicken pox may have distracted those looking after him from suspecting a more serious infection. In the airline industry it is known as a fixation error.
2. It’s not a case of oral penicillin for a week- its intravenous high dose antibiotics. If you suspected an infection such as meningococcal meningitis or septicaemia you would never send someone home.
3. Despite all the best will in the world despite the best/ best funded health systems in the world (oz, us, canada, uk)people will continue to die from bacterial sepsis but we should endeavour limit it where possible. In fact as antibiotic resistance and overuse increases this is only a problem that will increase.
4. Niamh using aberrations and medical jargon is not a substitute for knowledge.
It’s a case of doing your job in a proper way doctors should listen to mother and father as they know there child best not brush them off because they have too much to do
Niamh it takes more than a few hours to get a result from cultures if any sort , usually 3 for organism specific and sensitivities . Sounds like he may have developed herpes encephalitis which is a complication of chicken pox in the young . Not defending anybody involved as I don’t know the ins and outs of the case . Very sad for the family regardless .
@ Immanuel and Sorca
Thank you for your intelligent and compassionate answers
Terrible loss for the parents of this poor child.
Tragic case… Rest in peace
No one is blaming you Emmanuel – you don’t need to defend the entire medical profession or take jabs at people who you may wrongly think have less knowledge than you. Don’t over complicate. A 2 week course of oral potentiated amoxicillin IS often enough to knock most bacteria on the head if treated early enough. We are not talking about Mrsa here. We are not talking about acute sepsis either. We are talking about not leaving things til the last minute when its too late and you need to treat with iv stuff cos it’s gone systemic.If your patient is in a hospital with a high temp is not a crazy idea to give them some antibiotics. If they came in with a common virus, that’s not to say they won’t pick up something else from just sitting in the waiting room.
Mountainvet….I’m not defending the entire medical system. If you read my post I said a error occurred. Understanding why something happened is important to learn lessons from it- There simply is too little known about the case. It didn’t go to court as the family settled so we will never know.
If the child died 18 hours after being admitted to hospital and discharged seemingly well then we are talking about overwhelming bacterial sepsis/ septeciemia that lead to multi organ failure. Strep. throats and chicken pox don’t do that in 18 hours.
We take chicken pox as an infection most school children get but IT CAN have huge effects on a small number of chicken. My child had the winter vomiting bug very badly. I took her to a hospital in the midlands and the doc inA&E told me it was tonsillitis, she had them removed over a year previously. She suffered a secondary infection due to the vomiting bug and ended up needing life saving surgery and spent 7 months in hospital and a period of time in ICU. A parent KNOWS their own child like no one else and should be listened to. My child could have been saved so much and as a result has suffered an ABI. As the saying goes Doctors differ patients die.
Sorry small number of children not chicken…….sorry!
Lol, the chickens have enough to worry about with all the N5N1 bugs going around without getting the pox!
On a serious note, maybe consider calling an ambulance when fever and rash are causing you concern about your child. If signs and symptoms of meningococcal sepsis are present an advanced paramedic can administered IV/IM benzylpenicillin in your home/ambulance before arrival at hospital. Then when tests are being done or not being done, at least you have had some antibiotic treatment.
Sad case all the same, feel for the family.
John I feel for the chickens too but ambulance turnout can differ from 5 minutes in. Dublin to over 1 hour in the country depending on we’re you live. Dublin is blessed to have the DFB and the wonderful service they give. When we needed an ambulance here our nearest hospital is over 40 minutes drive away and theirs when on call so we had to wait for another HSE ambulance to be sent from else where which took over an hour to get here. As many of us know some illnesses can turn life treating within minutes. Our Health Service has a lot of improving to do but instead it is failing us badly and as a result we will hear of too many children and people losing their life in the process. :(
That poor family!!! R.I.P little man!
We really have a Third World medical system.
You’ve obviously never been in a third world hospital
I dare you to travel to the third world and experience public healthcare there and then repeat that statement with any shred of belief. Compare Ireland with African countries where aids patients families are charged for the rubber gloves used in the process of care or where 4th year medical students on elective are placed in charge if whole wards without supervision . Or compare to India where kidneys are bought for a few hundred pounds , women are paid to be surrogates or children die from malaria , typhoid , cholera , tb is rife etc etc it is a massive insult to those who work everyday to care for patients to label it “third world” .
Can’t say I’m surprised. Ended up in that A&E after a really bad car crash in the late ’90s. They sent my mother out the door to go home on the bus with a broken leg that they’d missed. As they’d missed it, here was no cast or anything. It was only discovered when, because of the constant pain, she went to a hospital in dublin. After an x-ray there they discovered the leg had been broken.
WORST hospital in the world!! I absolutely hate it Tullamore is where you’d wanna go if you live in Laois.
It actually appears he developed an infection of one of his blisters/pox which spread via the broken skin into his bloodstream leading to sepsis . Poor poppet .
Another death in an Irish hospital. Who was the Doctor responsible?
You?
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