Boy loses kidney after failed diagnosis

Boy loses kidney after failed diagnosis

GUARDIAN
1:24pm Tuesday 3rd July 2007
Exclusive By Rosa Silverman

A Wandsworth four-year-old lost a kidney today after the NHS failed to diagnose his kidney failure for three years.

Alan Stanley of Claudia Place, Southfields, was vomiting repeatedly every four to six weeks for the past three years.

But although his mother, Rosi Garcia, kept taking him to doctors' surgeries in Southfields, and to Kingston Hospital's accidents and emergencies department, they all told her there was nothing wrong with her son.

She said: "I took him to St Paul's Cottage Surgery in Augustus Road several times and they couldn't find a reason for the vomiting, so I took him to Tudor Lodge Health Centre in Victoria Drive but they said it was only a virus.

"He looked like a dead person, and everyone just kept telling me there was nothing wrong with him."

Alan, a pupil at Our Lady Queen of Heaven School in Southfields, had urine tests and a blood test at Kingston Hospital, but the doctors said the tests showed there was no problem.

It was not until her and husband Paul Stanley, desperate to find out what was wrong with their little boy, finally turned to private healthcare, that they found out one of Alan's kidneys barely worked.

At Parkside Hospital in Wimbledon, doctors carried out a scan immediately and found one of his kidneys barely worked and he would have to have it removed.

A tearful Ms Garcia said: "It's shocking, I've been taking him to different doctors for three years and I had to go private to find this out.

"If I'd gone straight to a private doctor three years ago they might have been able to save his kidney."

But the brave four-year-old tried to keep his parents' spirits up before his operation at St George's Hospital.

Ms Garcia added: "Alan says I'm alright, Mummy,' because he doesn't want us to be upset."

Wandsworth Primary Care Trust (PCT) and Kingston Hospital NHS trust both said they could not comment on individual cases.

A Wandsworth PCT spokesman said: "We sympathise with Alan's family and wish him a speedy recovery from surgery.

"The PCT looks into any concerns it finds and we always fully investigate any complaints patients make to us about GP surgeries in our area."

Kingston Hospital said Ms Garcia could contact the trust's patient advice service if she was concerned about her son's treatment.

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