The cost of trust
At the start of last summer, my 13-year-old daughter Martha was busy with life.
She’d meet her friends in the park, make silly videos on her phone and play “kiss, marry, kill”. Her days were filled with books and memorising song lyrics. She’d wonder aloud if she might become an author, an engineer or a film director. Her future was brimming with promise, crowded with plans.
By the end of the summer she was dead, after shocking mistakes were made at one of the UK’s leading hospitals.
WHAT FOLLOWS IS AN ACCOUNT of how Martha was allowed to die, but also what happens when you have blind faith in doctors – and learn too late what you should have known to save your child’s life. What I learned, I now want everyone to know. In a small way, I hope Martha’s story might change how some people think about healthcare; it might even save a life.
I am a fierce supporter of the principles of the NHS and realise how many excellent doctors are practising today. There’s no need for the usual political arguments: as the hospital in question has confirmed to me, what happened to Martha had nothing to do with insufficient resources or overstretched doctors and nurses; it had nothing to do with austerity or cuts, or a health service under strain.
No matter how many times I’m told that “it was the doctors’ job to look after Martha”, I know, deep down, that had I acted differently, she’d still be living, and my life would not now be broken. It’s not that I think I’m to blame: the hospital has admitted breach of duty of care and talked of a “catastrophic error”. But if I’d been more aware of how hospitals work and how some doctors behave, my daughter would be with me now.
As another bereaved parent told me, life after the death of your child is like being on an island, separate from the mainland where the “normal people” live. You so badly want to go back there but you never can. You’re stuck on the island for ever.
I HAD BOOKED A COTTAGE on the outskirts of Snowdonia national park. It was a small, old farmhouse with low-slung beams and no wifi or phone reception; parking was at the bottom of a hill on which sheep grazed. We ferried our bags to the door in a wheelbarrow, which Martha and her younger sister, Lottie, wanted rides in, too. Our first day was sunny: we went bodyboarding on Barmouth beach and Martha and I painted the valley view from the cottage. We had a meal in a pub, played cards – everything was holiday-easy, filled with light.
On the second day, we rented bikes and set out on a well-known cycle path: nine miles of old railway line, to the beach and back. A guide to the area described the route as “scenic, flat and familyfriendly”. On the way, Martha rode alongside me and I remember we talked about body hair (she wanted to know if she should shave her armpits). We swam in the sea, ate crab sandwiches and chips. But soon after we started back on our bikes, Martha slipped on a patch of sand that had blown from the beach on to the path. She was cycling slowly – “Captain Sensible” was our nickname for her – but she fell, and was soon making the zombie sounds of
