THE family of Callum Cartlidge are asking why doctors failed to realise he had a long-term life-threatening condition.
A post mortem into the death of the eight year old has found he died of Addison’s Crisis – a medical emergency which develops from Addison’s Disease.
This is a condition where the body’s adrenal glands do not produce enough steroid hormones.
If diagnosed it is a treatable illness however if not it can tip over into Addison’s Crisis.
Now the family are asking why medics failed to pick up the symptoms.
“He had been going to the doctors since Christmas,” said his aunt, Anita Walsh.
“He went three times in one week and they said he had a viral infection, but looking back, he had all the symptoms for Addison’s Disease. A simple blood test would have shown them.”
Those symptoms include severe leg pains, black marks on his body and sickness. Callum was a patient at Winyates Health Centre and he died on March 3 after being taken by ambulance from his Redditch home to Worcestershire Royal Hospital earlier that afternoon.
The day before he had been sent to the same hospital by his doctor but was later discharged at 11pm.
“When they discharged him he was so weak he couldn’t walk. I had to carry him. I had to hold a bottle to his lips so he could drink,” said Callum’s dad Aidy.
However Anita acknowledges that taking Callum to the Alex might not have saved his life: “I just do not know if he would have survived,” she said.
“I thought he might have something like leukaemia. I never imagined he had a disease which they failed to pick up.
“It seems we have been let down by them all, except the ambulance crew who were absolutely brilliant.”
Neal Stote, who is standing for election in Redditch on behalf of the National Health Action Party said: “If a simple blood test had been carried that family would be in an entirely different place now.
“And I don’t blame the doctors or nurses – this is down to a lack of resources. They say Worcestershire Royal is where all the specialists are but something must be wrong if they are discharging a sick child at 11 o’clock at night.”
Staff at both Winyates Health Centre and Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust said they could not comment until after the Coroner’s Court had realised its verdict, the spokesperson for WAHT adding: “This is a tragic case and our condolences go out to the Cartlidge family.”
The Coroner’s Court will consider the case on June 28.
