Parents Seek Legal Advice After Boy Dies

Posted on Jun 29, 2009 
 

The parents of an 11 month old baby are seeking legal advice about suing a Manchester hospital for medical negligence after their son died just four days after being sent home from hospital. 
 
According to The Manchester Evening News, Syed Zakariya Hayder Rizvi, Zak for short, was rushed in to Trafford General Hospital with a temperature of nearly 39ºC. He was also slipping in and out of consciousness and was shivering.  
 
Hospital staff checked Zak over, took him for an X-ray, gave him paracetamol and then sent him home even after a doctor recommended that Zak should be kept in for further tests. His mother, Shamila, a trained nurse, said:  
 
"He was so healthy. He was really bubbly and hardly ever at the doctors. I put my trust in the doctors' hands that night we first took him in. If they hadn't sent him home, if they had kept him in for observation and done a simple blood or urine test, maybe they could have treated him and he would still be with us today."  
 
Within 24 hours of being sent home from hospital, Zak lost his appetite and became floppy and breathless, so his mother took him back to the hospital. It was only at this point that staff carried out further tests and Zak was taken to the intensive care unit and put on a ventilator. The next day, Zak was transferred to Liverpool's Alder Hey Children's Hospital where he died 24 hours later on 15th June.  
 
After his death, the results of tests taken at Trafford General Hospital came back showing that Zak had been suffering with meningococcal meningitis. The hospital are now carrying out an investigation into whether the baby's death could have been prevented.  
 
Shamila, Zak's mother said: "Why didn't they do those tests on the Thursday? The results took 48 hours to come back and it was too late." She and her husband are now consulting a Manchester law firm about suing Trafford General Hospital for medical negligence and Shamila wants to raise awareness of meningococcal meningitis so that parents know what symptoms to look for.  
 
Zak's father, Zeshan, said: "He was our only child, our son. We can never replace him. We're heartbroken."  
 
In speaking about Zak's case, a spokesman for Trafford Healthcare NHS Trust said: "This is a very sad case and the family have our deepest sympathy. We have launched an investigation to see if there was anything we could have done to prevent his death and we will keep the family fully informed of our findings."