Child’s death ‘a medical accident’

A CORONER has deemed the death of a five-year-old girl who suffered brain damage when just six weeks old after being given prescription baby food containing 124-times the permitted level of magnesium as a medical accident.

Following a two-day inquest in Galway the parents of Elaine Barrett from Cloonacauneen, Claregalway, said yesterday they were distressed at having to wait seven years to finally learn what caused their daughter’s death.

Frank and Eileen Barrett criticised the manufacturers of the baby food, B Braun Medical Ltd, 3 Naas Road Industrial Park, Dublin, and the Irish Medicines Board, whom they claimed knew from their own investigations what had happened to their daughter’s brain a week after the food had been administered to her in May, 2003, but had never contacted them to explain their findings in the intervening seven years.