The former chief executive of the Western Health Trust has apologised for her “abilities” not being “adequate to meet the needs of a grieving family.”
Stella Burnside
Stella Burnside was giving evidence at the Hyponatraemia Inquiry which is examining the death of Raychel Ferguson (9) in Altnagelvin Hospital in 2001, a day after undergoing routine surgery to remove her appendix. It has been established she had been administered a lethal dose of intravenous fluid.
Hyponatraemia is the term for a low level of sodium in the bloodstream which causes the brain cells to swell with too much water.
Following her death, Raychel’s family met with Mrs Burnside who yesterday told the inquiry, sitting in Banbridge, she was “profoundly sorry” the meeting or her “abilities” in that meeting were “not adequate to meet the needs of a grieving family.”
Mrs Burside added the meeting had been “an honest attempt to be honest” offer an apology for “this child who should not have died.”
Mrs Burnside said she had attempted to give the family the fullest explanation and denied she had been involved in, or had even been aware of, a critical report which was commissioned by the Trust.
She said she regretted the Trust had not provided all the information it might have done to the coroner.
In reply to a claim by the lawyer representing Raychel’s family that at least one senior doctor had believed it had been her decision to withhold the report from the coroner, she insisted she had no involvement with the report and had not heard of it until recently.
Mrs Burnside said she was did not know of a disagreement between Raychel’s family and nurses on duty immediately after her death and was only aware of the situation when Raychel’s mother raised it at the meeting, three months after her death.
The Western Trust, which has responsibility for Altnagelvin Hospital, has already accepted responsibility for Raychel’s death.
The inquiry is also examining the hyponatraemia-related deaths of three children in hospitals in Northern Ireland, the events following the death of another and a number of issues around the death of a fifth child.
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