A mother is suing Watford General Hospital claiming medical negligence led to her ten-year-old son suffering a heart attack and being left with severe brain damage.
Elijah Aldea, now aged 11, remains in a quadriplegic state after he was without a heartbeat for 45 minutes at Watford General following the cardiac arrest in April last year. Elijah, a former pupil of Sacred Heart Catholic Primary School, was born with a cleft lip and palate and two holes in his heart and had been a long-standing patient at Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) in London. Days before his heart attack he had an operation at GOSH. Follow up tests showed he was anaemic and he was admitted to Watford General. Mum Gabrielle Ali, 30, thought he would just be given iron tablets, but under the instruction of GOSH, doctors decided Elijah needed a blood transfusion and to be given anti-clotting drug heparin.
Gabrielle, a biochemist employed by the NHS trust in charge of Watford General for eight years, begged doctors not to give the heparin after she had talked to Elijah’s registrar of five years, but eventually agreed when staff at Great Ormond Street threatened to report her for child neglect. She said she even considered sneaking her son out of the hospital, but there was no way of getting past the nurses’ station unseen. As the drug was administered, Elijah’s heart stopped. Gabrielle said: “I know my son, these doctors didn’t.
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Gabrielle Ali and son Elijah Aldea about two years ago.
Filed under: Hospital, NHS, NHS Blunders, Medical Negligence, NHS
