Bosses at Bristol Children’s Hospital presided over a “toxic culture” in which risks were taken with children’s lives, according to the parents of a young boy who died following heart surgery.
Yolanda Turner accused the board of the University Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust of overseeing poor standards in care on Ward 32 – a specialist cardiac unit – at Bristol Children’s Hospital. Her son Sean died aged four in March 2012 from a brain haemorrhage after previously suffering a cardiac arrest while on the ward following complex heart surgery.
Mrs Turner, from Warminster, Wiltshire criticised the trust ahead of the publication of the independent inquiry into cardiac services at the children’s hospital. “We hope that the Bristol Review will enable the trust board to be held to account for their failures to provide a service that fell well below acceptable standards,” she said.
“They were basically putting staff in a position of risk and safety and taking risks with children’s lives. The trust board will have to be held to account for that. “We’ve said all along this board has a very toxic culture and they are not open and honest with families and that all needs to change. “We are hoping that major changes will come about from the Review which will make that hospital a much safer place. “The whole purpose of our public fight and our campaign has been to ensure that changes are made and that no other child has suffer what Sean went through.
“It is important for us to be believed because we felt very much that we weren’t believed and people had that opinion that you lost a child so you are bitter and you want to blame somebody but that really hasn’t been the case at all. “We were frightened about what happened to Sean and we were afraid for other children that were using the unit and our fears have been proven because other children have now followed.”
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Yolanda and Steve Turner are awaiting Thursday’s review
Filed under: Uncategorized, Bristol Children's Hospital, Medical Negligence
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