Coroner's call after tot death at North hospital

Nov 6 2011 by Sara Nichol, Sunday Sun

A CORONER is considering calling for an NHS Trust to take action after complications during surgery led to a toddler’s death.

Little Elise Pelling died after fluid got into her lungs during an operation at Newcastle’s Great North Children’s Hospital.

The one-year-old developed aspiration pneumonia, a condition from which she was expected to recover, but problems with her bowels and an undetected heart malformation caused her to suddenly collapse in November last year.

Doctors worked to resuscitate the toddler, who lived in Middlesbrough with her parents Lee and Natalie, but she tragically passed away.

Now, at an inquest at Newcastle’s Civic Centre, the coroner criticised the Newcastle Hospitals NHS Trust for failing to class Elise as a high risk patient before she went into surgery.

During her short life, Elise had to undergo 11 operations and was fed via a tube after she was born with a deformed bowel and intestine.

Because of her medical problems, doctors had to use a tube to remove fluid from the toddler’s stomach - a procedure called aspiration - every time she went into surgery, to avoid anything getting into her lungs.

But when Elise was about to undergo her 11th anaesthetic, she wasn’t classed as a high-risk patient, despite her significant medical history, the inquest heard.

Anaesthetist Dr Auinash Ratnapar told the coroner that when he aspirated Elise no fluid came out, so he thought her stomach was empty.

But Elise’s mum Mrs Pelling disagreed and said the aspiration never happened in the first place.

She said: “I had Elise on my lap all the time, so there is no way the doctors could have got to the tube to aspirate her without moving me.”

Elise went on to vomit during surgery, meaning her stomach hadn’t been properly emptied and allowing fluid to get into her lungs.

Coroner David Mitford raised concerns with some aspects of Elise’s care, including the fact she wasn’t classed as a high-risk patient and what went wrong with the aspiration procedure.

He said: “This case has raised cause for concern. I heard a great deal of evidence from many doctors and I still have cause for concern.

“We’re dealing with a baby who over two years has undoubtedly had massive medical problems.

“She was clearly potentially at risk in many ways at the time. Having to be fed by a nasogastric tube for as long as she was indicates the nature of the problems.”