I was left horrified after my baby son was misdiagnosed – I started planning his funeral
A MUM has revealed that she got as far a planning her baby’s funeral after a horrifying misdiagnosis landed him in A&E.
Tara Colvin, from Tonbridge, Kent, rushed three-week-old son Albie to hospital after he turned “purple”, as she was told to prepare for the worst.
Tara had first taken the young boy to the doctor the day before after she noticed he “sounded a bit chesty”.
The GP reportedly gave her some saline drops and told her it would clear up, only for Albie to end up in hospital that night.
She told Kent Live: “I saw doctors at half past four in the afternoon and by half past 11 the following morning I’m at Pembury Hospital A&E because he’s purple and going blue around the mouth.
“His oxygen levels were dangerously low and he was put straight onto oxygen.
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“Within 10 minutes of being at the hospital he’s admitted to a ward. They checked his chest and he had a crackle on his chest.
“It turned out he had bronchitis.”
Tara was apparently told to “prepare herself” for him to be intubated and hooked up to life support machines, which left her “arranging [Albie’s] funeral”.
The distraught mum described the ordeal as “heartbreaking” and “traumatic” and thanked her friends and family for supporting her through it, including her best friend who stayed with her the whole time.
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She added: “It was bad enough after his birth, I was diagnosed with post-natal depression so to have to deal with that on top.
“I’m terrified to go to sleep at night now. I have nightmares seeing him hooked up to all these machines.
“Just the fact of not knowing whether my son was going to die. It was absolutely heart-wrenching.”
Her two other children, aged six and 10, had to stay with their grandad and missed out on half-term plans.
Tara said that it had “really affected” the children, one of whom has autism and ADHD, adding: “They cried every night I was in hospital when they thought their brother was going to die.”
Thankfully, Albie has now made a “big turnaround with antibiotics” and is getting better.
His mum praised the doctors for their hard work, saying: “I owe the hospital my son’s life. I cannot fault the doctors and the nurses at that hospital.
“They did an amazing job in getting my son well again.”
However, she has written a letter of complaint to the GP surgery, which she says is yet to provide a response.
She said: “If it was a first-time mum who doesn’t know what sort of signs to look for they could end up waking up to a dead baby. It’s just horrendous.”
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A spokesperson for the practice told Kent Live that they could not comment on the matter due to its duty of confidentiality, but added they were sorry to hear about the complaints raised.
They also reportedly pointed to the practice’s complaints procedure.