Mother's intuition saves little girl's life as hospital admits failure

A mother’s intuition may have saved the life of her baby girl after she decided to leave a Newcastle emergency room after waiting hours.

Nine month old Khloe is now being treated for meningococcal after being diagnosed by a GP with a hospital admitting its care fell short.

Khloe’s mum Darcie Mitchell noticed something wasn’t right on Tuesday afternoon.

“She woke up from a nap like normal, eyes fluttering and vomiting everywhere, and shaking and severe temperature,” she said.

Darcie took Khloe to John Hunter Hospital where nurses suspected she had gastro and gave her Nurofen.

But after four hours in the waiting room, Khloe’s condition was not improving.

Her young parents made the decision to leave and take her to see a GP.

“He said to me I don’t want to worry you but I am going to give her penicillin because I’m thinking it’s meningococcal,” Darcie said.

“I strongly believe that if I didn’t take her to the GP she would not be here now.”

Khloe was brought back to the hospital by ambulance.

Test confirmed she has meningococcal septicaemia.

“She’s in so much pain and you have these thoughts running through your mind, what if she didn’t get the treatment?” Darcie said.

The hospital’s general manager has apologised to the family, saying in a statement: “ …In this instance it appears that we have fallen short.”

“It wasn’t Ok,” Darcie said.

“It’s wasn’t Ok the way we were treated and made to feel like we were idiots when we knew something was no right.”

Darcie’s father Jeremy Anning said the hospital had been amazing but said the issue lay with the emergency department.

“It’s just the emergency department that have let us down… something has to be done because there’s so many poor sick children that go in there and they have to sit there for hours and hours on end.”