Twenty-month-old Jessi-Jean MacLennan died in November 2019 at the Royal Hospital for Children in Glasgow of a rare tumor.
A Wilms tumor is a type of kidney cancer that she had been fighting. It’s very uncommon in children; in fact, less than 100 instances are reported annually in the UK.
According to recent studies, even in late stages, there is an 85% cure rate for Wilms tumors.
According to the Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain, a fatal accident investigation was ordered to be convened at Inverness Sheriff’s Court since the death of Jessi caused “significant” public concern. Her mother, Sara, had sounded the alarm about her “totally manageable” ailment, but physicians had ignored her, according to Sheriff Eilidh MacDonald.
In July 2019, Mrs. MacLennan brought Jessi to Culloden Surgery in Inverness because she was worried about her declining appetite and rising fever.
After seeing her on October 3, Dr. Toby Gilbertson did no follow-up nor staged any further inquiries,
A bulge on the left side of Jessi’s tummy and a blood clot in her diaper were among the recurrent symptoms that led her to seek physicians four more times.
Dr. Abdul Jabber Bhutto diagnosed Jessi with constipation after Mrs. MacLennan phoned NHS 24. Jessi was treated at Raigmore Hospital in Inverness.
After Jessi vomited at home in November 2019, paramedics arrived and found her to be “blue, cold and unconscious”; they transported her to Glasgow by air ambulance.
Following a heart attack on November 25, she died in the hospital a few days later.
In his report for the investigation, expert witness Dr. Norman Wallace said that Jessi should have been transferred for professional care.
If Jessi had been investigated thoroughly, “cure was not only feasible but likely,” Professor Hamish Wallace told the inquiry.
Bain stated: “The evidence reveals that Mrs. MacLennan did all she could to try and secure the treatment her daughter required from the physicians; she could have done no more.” “My sincerest sympathies go out to Mr. and Mrs. MacLennan and the rest of the family; everyone involved in the investigation understood the magnitude of their loss.
The child’s terrible death prompted NHS Highland to say it had improved its pediatric treatment, according to the report.
