Family's plea after baby emergency

AN Ipswich family are today demanding answers after their baby daughter ended up in hospital with a serious viral infection hours after being sent home by her GP.

Shaun Bennett, of Burns Road, also claims that 19-month-old Kaycey was given the wrong dose of medication by the GP.

The family's drama began on Wednesday morning when Kaycey woke up with a rash all over her body.

Mr Bennett's partner Michelle Gibbs, 34, made an emergency appointment for her at the Chesterfield Drive surgery that lunchtime, where the GP prescribed medicine and sent the family away.

Mr Bennett said: “They were told that the rash would clear and that they would see how she was by Monday.”

But by tea-time Wednesday evening Kaycey's condition had deteriorated so rapidly she had to be rushed to A&E at Ipswich Hospital.

Mr Bennett said: “When we got her there the doctors were surprised we hadn't taken her sooner but we had done what the GP said. “They said that, because her body was swelling, her throat could have closed at any time.”

Kaycey was kept in overnight and was allowed to return home Thursday morning.

Mr Bennett, 35, said: “The rash seemed to have calmed down on Thursday and she seemed much better, but when she woke up on Friday she had got much worse.

“The blotches had all come back and her whole body had swollen, we couldn't even get her shoes on.”

They rushed Kaycey straight back to the hospital and it was then that doctors spotted the high dose of medicine she had been taking.

Mr Bennett said: “We took the bottle with us to show them what she had been taking and when the doctor looked at it he said the dose was too high.

“We had been told to give her three 5ml doses a day, but the advice on the bottle actually said children under two should not have more than 5ml in a whole day.”

The doctor at the hospital prescribed a different kind of medicine and Kaycey is on the way to making a full recovery.

A spokesman for the Chesterfield Drive surgery said they had launched a full internal investigation in to what happened and would let the family know as soon as it was complete.