A mum has told how she watched her four-year-old daughter suffer pain ‘similar to labour’ when she passed a kidney stone doctors had failed to spot.
Petrina Elliot rushed little Millie to A&E when she was screaming in agony after 11 doctors had dismissed her symptoms as an infection and even wrongly diagnosed sepsis.
The brave girl had been taken to her GP several times and had been discharged from Blackpool Victoria Hospital on three separate occasions without further tests being done.
Eventually Millie’s distressed mum, Petrina, 33 and dad Scott Elliott, 34, begged doctors to check for kidney stones.
However, Petrina claims doctors told her ‘children do not suffer from kidney stones,’ so no tests would be done for it.
A scan was eventually done which showed kidney stones in the left kidney; however, she was discharged again and told to wait for a referral to Alder Hey Hospital for the removal on March 22.
Little Millie, who has a twin brother Tommy, was assured she would not pass the stone as it was adult sized.
But ten days later her mother took her to hospital after she found Millie screaming in pain.
Furious Petrina said: “Millie has gone through pain that most adults would have been sedated for.
“The only way I can describe is it was like labour – her face was going purple.”
When they reached the hospital, the poor girl bled heavily after passing the stone.
Millie’s mum added: “It was sad to watch Millie going through so much pain – all she had was one dose of Calpol, I got her in the car and raced her to A&E.
“She passed the stone when we just got there, she said mummy I’ve just had a wee but when I checked to change her there was a stone and a pool of blood with it.
“The doctor turned to her and said we’re going to get you better, without prompt from me she said to him ‘no you won’t I got myself better.’
“That’s absolutely shocking. How can a four-year-old recognise the doctors’ faults? I’ve lost trust in the hospital but can you imagine what it has done to her psychologically?
“My children are miracle babies through IVF and they have put her at risk.
“Now her possibility of getting kidney stones again is higher and the risk of kidney failure later in life is increased.”
The young girl from Blackpool, Lancs., was first taken to hospital on February 1 after experiencing severe pain while urinating and was given antibiotics to treat an infection.
The family then went to a walk-in centre on Feb 5, and was referred to the Blackpool Victoria’s children’s ward to be treated for UTI – unitary tract infection.
Six days later, the worried mother called the GP as Millie was vomiting and she was sent back to the children’s ward and monitored overnight.
She was released with a canullar which monitored her blood until Feb 13 when she was given more antibiotics.
Over a week later on Feb 21, Millie was taken back to her GP because she was vomiting and the doctor suspected she had sepsis.
She was sent back to the hospital and given a canullar to monitor her blood, and had to go to the hospital every day from the 22nd – 25th to check her results .
The parents begged the hospital to carry out a scan on Millie and refused to leave until they booked a date for a scan which was planned for March 22.
Due to their persistence, a scan was eventually done on Feb 25, which revealed there was a large stone which had passed from her kidney into her bladder.
They are now awaiting a referral to Manchester Children’s Hospital to see whether Millie sustained any internal damage.
Petrina, a family support and well-being student at Blackpool and the Fylde College, said she had been seen by no fewer than 11 different doctors before her kidney stone was found.
She said: “This could have all been avoided. She shouldn’t have had to go through that trauma.
“They’re usually very good, Tommy suffers from Asthma and they’ve always been brilliant, maybe it’s because they didn’t know what they were doing but this has affected my trust.”
Petrina has also made a complaint to the Patient Advice and Liaison Service about the hospital.
A spokesman for Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said: “The Trust does not comment on individual cases but takes all complaints very seriously and deals with them through its thorough complaint processes.”