Girl died five years after being poisoned by supplement

A BABY girl developed brain damage and died five years later after being poisoned by food which contained magnesium levels 120 times above normal.

Elaine Barrett from Galway, who was born prematurely, was less than six weeks old when she was given a special bag of food supplement in May 2003 which turned out to be contaminated.

Her father, Frank Barrett, of Cloonacauneen, Claregalway, yesterday recounted how he and his wife, Eileen, were told that their little baby girl had little chance of survival after being fed the contaminated feed.

A consultant paediatrician told Galway Coroner’s Court that the little girl would have died much earlier were it not for the remarkable care given to Elaine by her parents.

And a multi-national medical firm yesterday issued an apology to the Barrett family for manufacturing the baby feed called Total Parental Nutrition (TPN), which caused massive brain damage to the little girl.

A combination of human error and a system failure in the factory where the product was made led to the contaminated product being manufactured.

But the coroner’s court was told the family had waited seven years for an explanation and apology from B Braun Medical, of 3 Naas Road Industrial Park in Dublin, and that the German firm had tried to blame a hospital in Galway for the brain damage caused to the little girl which led to her death.

Mr Barrett recounted how the family had looked after Elaine at home for almost five-and-a-half years and how they eventually had to borrow money to pay for nursing care. The couple has two children, Lorna, 3, and Cormac, 11 months.

Mr Barrett told coroner Dr Ciarán McLaughlin he and his wife bore no malice against the people involved. And he said that they would be forever grateful to all the help they received from hospital staff in Galway and Dublin. They wanted to ensure another family did not go through what they have endured.

The coroner’s court was told that Elaine Barrett was born by emergency section at Holles Street maternity hospital in Dublin on April 16, 2003, at 26 weeks. She was transferred back to Galway as she got stronger but required at times to be fed intravenously and was given a product called TPN. This was manufactured by B Braun Medical. Each bag was manufactured to the individual specifications of each patient following instructions from the patient’s hospital each day.

Dr Kevin Dunne, a consultant paediatrician at Galway University Hospital, said that two bags of TPN had been ordered but when the first of these were fed to Elaine on May 25, 2003, she became extremely agitated and her condition deteriorated. She was not given the second bag of TPN.

The coroner’s court was told that it subsequently emerged that the magnesium level in the bag given to the baby was 120 times above what it should have been.

The effect on Elaine was catastrophic, with the magnesium levels resulting in the replacement of 99% of the baby’s brain with fluid. She died from pneumonia on October 16, 2008, having been brought home from hospital. She had been in hospital 18 times during her short life.

Dr Dunne paid tribute to the exceptional care given to Elaine by her parents. “The reason she lived so long was because of the love and care she got from her parents,” he said.

Her father, Frank, said that Elaine screamed all the time, she had a disrupted sleep pattern which could see her sleep for 24 hours and then remain awake for three days.

“But she was a wonderful part of our lives,” he said.

An investigation by B Braun Medical found that there was a systems failure in their manufacturing operation, compounded by a change in personnel during the manufacturing process. Magnesium from the manufacture of a previous bag was left in a supply line and this was erroneously fed into the bag which was given to Elaine and was not detected before being shipped to Galway.

Managing director Paul Mullally said that new systems were put in place to ensure a similar error would not occur again. He offered an apology to the Barrett family and said B Braun Medical regretted manufacturing the bag which led to the brain damage and subsequent death of Elaine. He said it affected people in B Braun Medical as well.

But senior counsel for the Barrett family, Ronnie Robbins, said that the medical company had attempted to blame Galway University Hospital and involve them in the process.

The coroner’s court was told that a civil action has been agreed between the family and the medical company in recent weeks but is still waiting to be finalised by the High Court.

The inquest continues in Galway this morning.