Family speaks out after daughter dies after "Gross Failure"

[dutchman]

A Coventry couple who lost their teenage daughter because doctors didn’t feed her properly after an operation are telling other families not to give up if they think doctors have got it wrong.



19-year old Stephanie Bell went into University Hospital for surgery on a long-running bowel problems back in September 2008.

She recovered, but was left with a colostomy bag which she went it to have reversed six months later.

By April she was being constantly sick and returned to hospital as an out-patient in May weighing just six-and-a-half stone.

Her dad Graeme drove her to hospital at the start of June, and they kept her in but didn’t give her vital nutrients through a tube which would have helped replace the food she wasn’t able to take through her stomach due to a blockage in her bowel.

Graeme said: “I think for the last week of her life she didn’t receive the care she desperately needed.”

“A naso-gastric tube was eventually fitted but not straight away so she wasn’t receiving any nutrition. When they did put it in, it made her sick because she couldn’t digest her food.

“She should have been on a drip but they should have given her that a long time ago.”

“She had an operation on June 11th and went back into intensive care but she died on June 13th.”

A coroner ruled that Stephanie’s death was preventable and was down to gross failure and the family have since had compensation after taking legal action.

The hospital’s Chief Medical Officer, Richard Kennedy said: “Stephanie’s case is tragic and we recognise we fell short of the standards that we strive to achieve in this case and for that we are truly sorry.”

“We are determined to learn from this and have already made significant strides to improve nutritional services within this Trust.”

Graeme is now hoping what’s happened to them will never happen to anyone else:

“It should never have happened. She was robbed of everything. Her life was just beginning.”

He also thinks someone should be disciplined for it:

“I know there has been a report and the hospital has had to change things but everybody else is getting on with their lives. Nobody has been punished for it.”

“I want people to know what happened to her and why.”