A MUM is angry over how Worcestershire Royal Hospital treated her three-month-old son, saying he could have died.
Justine Smith took her baby boy, Rocky Smith, to Worcestershire Royal Hospital two months ago, where he was diagnosed with bronchitis.
However, as he was still struggling with his breathing, Mrs Smith took him back to the hospital on December 27 where he was given antibiotics.
On Sunday (January 5), Rocky’s heart rate dropped and his oxygen levels fell.
Mrs Smith, 25, said: “I was in and out of hospital for months and he was getting worse. In between this time, he had stopped breathing three times.
“The doctor said they were going to leave him how he was, but then he quickly deteriorated. I am really angry. My son’s life is at risk.
“They have damaged my son. They have given him the wrong medication – it could’ve killed him.”
Rocky was taken to Royal Stoke University Hospital and is in intensive care after being diagnosed with Respiratory Syncytial Virus.
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Mrs Smith claims the doctors in Stoke-on-Trent told her that his diagnoses was in Rocky’s notes from Worcestershire Royal, but she alleges that staff failed to tell her about his breathing virus.
He had an emergency x-ray which showed both his lungs had collapsed and his airways were blocked.
Mrs Smith, from Ryall in Upton-upon-Severn, says Rocky’s collapsed lungs have caused a dip in his stomach, causing his rib cage to be on show. He’s now on stronger antibiotics and will stay in intensive care in Royal Stoke University Hospital.
Mrs Smith added: “He has been neglected. There was no communication.”
Dr Angus Thomson, divisional director for women and children’s services at Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, said: “Unfortunately we cannot give specific details on individual patient care for confidentiality reasons. However, we are confident that our children’s doctors and nurses make appropriate clinical decisions and provide the safest and most appropriate treatments.
"Clinical situations do change and develop and we respond to these accordingly, which sometimes means arranging transfer of children to intensive care units elsewhere if a level of care that we are unable to provide in Worcestershire is required.”
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