Baby boy dies after GPs circumcise him

[ailbhe]

Local newspaper article.

When I saw the initial headline, "Baby dies after circumcision," I knew where it had happened and had a horrible feeling I knew the doctor, too.

It's the one who inspired me to change GP surgeries when I was pregnant with Linnea. Same one who said he couldn't sign me off sick with stress when I was in that last job.

Comments

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

This is such a horrible thing to be thinking about . . .

If he only bled out, say, 30 mL, though -- he'd maybe STILL be in serious danger? An adult can handle the loss of 10% of one's blood with no ill effects -- people have 5 liters of blood and they donate a half-liter when they give blood, and that doesn't do any harm -- but an infant? I don't know. I'm no doctor.

Unfortunately, it sounds like the guy who performed the surgery wasn't much more of a doctor than I am.

[webhill.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm not a physician, but in the nonhuman mammals I treat the rule of thumb is that up to 15% blood loss doesn't really require more than basic supportive care; 15-30% requires crystalloid support only (so, plain IV saline); >30% is when you need to transfuse. That said, before using that rule of thumb clinically in a neonate of any species I would have to look it up because I don't see a lot of neonates. But now we are getting sooooo far afield. My only point is that wow, I can't imagine a baby could HEMORRHAGE to death without someone noticing something funky about that diaper!

[ailbhe]

The FIRST diaper, four hours after the operation, the parents saw that the baby was bleeding very heavily and tried to get help as instructed by the doctors who had performed the operation. That was in the evening. He was still alive the following morning when he was admitted to hospital because the bleeding still hadn't stopped.

[webhill.livejournal.com]

Ah. So, when they changed that first diaper, the system failed. He should have gone to the ER at that point! Or whatever you guys call it. Casualty? Ambulatory urgent care? Something. Someone needed to treat then. Those poor, poor, poor people :(

[ailbhe]

Yes, they should have had some functional emergency number instead of the GP's own "out of hours" number, which was probably the number they were given which wasn't answered.