Kelly Marie Wood’s grandfather talks about her tragic death after hospital failures
Oct 4 2010 by Kevin Core, Huddersfield Daily Examiner
THE grandfather of a brave 20-year-old has spoken out about a string of hospital failings which he says contributed to her death.
Kelly Marie Wood, from Deighton, was one of the youngest people in the UK ever to have had a heart transplant and went on to win top awards at the British Transplant Games.
But it’s now been revealed that bosses at Halifax’s Calderdale Royal Hospital wrote to her grandparents a year after she was taken ill in and tragically died in July, 2008, acknowledging there were “deficiencies” in her care and that “apologies are very hollow in the face of your loss”.
The Huddersfield and Calderdale NHS Foundation Trust accepted “the care we provided was not the very best it could have been”.
Her grandparents Carol and Martin Wood have now released the Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust report into their granddaughter’s treatment from July, 2009, following the end of a lengthy legal process.
It reveals that Mr Wood pleaded with doctors to consider the possibility that Kelly was rejecting her transplant heart and not, as the doctors suspected, suffering the effects of a heart attack.
It also found that a crucial echocardiogram test which showed that Kelly’s heart was pumping poorly could have been carried out 24 hours earlier.
Most distressingly for Mr Wood, when it was decided her condition was so serious she had to be transferred to Middlesex’s Harefield Hospital, the ambulance was booked as a normal transfer so became stuck in traffic as it was not allowed to use its blue light.
Travelling in his own car, Mr Wood reached the hospital before the ambulance did.
The Trust’s report into her treatment acknowledges if she had been reassessed on the morning of her transfer, a blue light ambulance or even a helicopter could have been used.
Kelly was raised by her grandparents after her parents separated.
Kelly, who suffered depression, had stopped taking anti-rejection medication and doctors at Calderdale were aware of this.
In a letter to Mr and Mrs Wood, Diane Whittingham, chief executive of the hospital trust, accepted there were deficiencies in the care, that the echocardiogram could have been carried out earlier and if Kelly had been reviewed by a senior doctor prior to transfer the mode and timing of it may have changed.
She wrote: “During this difficult time we were clearly not listening adequately to those who know her best and I can understand this added to your understandable distress.
