Hospital care at weekends a concern
Although a catalogue of care failures meant 21-year-old Kevin Murphy’s health was already severely compromised by the time he was hospitalised, his mother Margaret questioned if the outcome would have been different had he been admitted during the week.
“Because it was a weekend, he was managed at registrar level. Is it good that the standard of care at the weekends might not be the same as Monday to Friday? The impact of a weekend admission seemed to be ‘Please stay alive until Monday’,” she said.
Speaking at a patient safety conference to mark the Bon Secours Hospital Foundation Day, Margaret, an international spokes-woman for patients and member of the WHO’s World Alliance for Patient Safety, spoke about how the shutters came down among medical professionals following her son’s death.
“Initially, there was honesty and a humane reaction. The young SHO [junior doctor] that had checked on Kevin took off his white coat and sat among Kevin’s friends. A nurse sat next to me in ICU stroking my arm and crying freely. I said ‘Don’t you see this every day?’. She said, ‘You don’t see this every day. That [Kevin’s death] should never have happened’.”
In the weeks after his death there was a “closing of ranks”, Margaret said, with doctors’ protestations of loyalty to colleagues, and to their employer. A consultant said he did not understand a vital Post-It note stuck to the back of Kevin’s file. The Post-It outlined various blood test results, including the very high levels of calcium indicating that Kevin had hypercalcemia, eminently treatable in the early stages with a 96% success rate.
Three month’s after Kevin’s death, his father was successfully treated for the same condition.
Kevin, from Tracton Place, Montenotte, Cork, died in Sept 1999, a year and 10 months after he was diagnosed with elevated levels of calcium in his blood. Following diagnosis, Kevin was not informed by his doctors of his condition. Kevin died on a Sunday, four days after being admitted, first the Mercy University Hospital before being transferred to Cork University Hospital.
Ms Murphy said every point of contact in the healthcare system had failed her son, but that instead of a willingness to learn from mistakes, the focus was on “muddying the waters”, forcing the family to undertake legal action to obtain the answers they sought.
“Almost five years later the judge in the High Court ruled that it was very clear that Kevin Murphy should not have died.
“The doctors and consultants then sympathised: sadly, not in person, but through their legal representatives.”
What was needed was a policy of open disclosure, she said.
