Hospital plans changes after toddler's death
12:20pm Wednesday 8th October 2008
A children's hospital has pledged to review doctors’ training after the death of a little girl, an inquest was told.
Indya Trevelyan, just 20 months old, was suffering from croup, a common childhood viral infection, but she died after an emergency medical procedure went wrong at the Royal Alexandra Children’s Hospital, in Brighton.
On the second day of an inquest her parents, Sian, who is pregnant, and Nigel heard that an investigation by the Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust recommended an action plan of measures after their daughter’s death.
Indya, who lived with her parents in Pease Pottage, near Crawley, became ill in April. She developed a cough which led to her becoming breathless.
She was taken to the Princess Royal Hospital, in Haywards Heath, on April 14, but sent home after her condition improved.
The next day, when her condition worsened, she was taken to the Royal Alex where croup was diagnosed and she was kept in for treatment.
On April 17, doctors decided to carry out a procedure under general anaesthetic to find out what was restricting her airways.
While she was in the operating theatre doctors carried out an emergency tracheotomy.
The procedure appeared to be successful but after the surgeon left the theatre, the tracheotomy tube became displaced and Indya suffered a cardio-respiratory arrest.
Medics tried to resuscitate her before she was transferred to the paediatric regional intensive care unit at St Thomas’s Hospital, in London, where she died on April 18.
The inquest was told an investigation concluded the child’s death was “preventable”.
The report stated: “Indya’s preventable death arose out of false assumptions and weak communication.”
The action plan recommended updating the existing trust guidelines on dealing with similar operations.
Simon Watts, consultant ear, nose and throat paediatric surgeon, told the hearing: “An enormous amount of effort has been made to ensure this never happens again.”
Turning to Indya’s parents, he said: “I want you to know this has rocked our department to the very core.
We are terribly saddened by what happened.”
The inquest is expected to conclude on Friday.