The administrative court of Montpellier (Hérault) condemned the hospitals of Perpignan (Pyrénées-Orientales) and Toulouse Purpan (Haute-Garonne) in the death of Raphaël Vialet. The one-and-a-half-month-old baby died following a succession of medical errors.
The facts date back to the summer of 2019. Aimeline Vialet goes to the emergency room of the Perpignan hospital (Pyrénées-Orientales) for the second time this week, her sick baby in her arms. Raphaël finally dies 2 days later after a succession of medical errors.
On July 31, 2019, when Aimeline and Matthieu Vialet arrived in the emergency room with their son Raphaël, they were already very worried. The baby does not eat, no longer urinates, vomits violently and repeatedly. Its complexion is whitish and its belly mottled.
This is the second time that Raphaël has been seen in the Perpignan emergency room. Three days earlier, his parents had brought him there for the same vomiting. The pediatrician finds reflux and sends the family home. “I was very worried and I felt deep inside that something was going on”testifies Aimeline Vialet. “Nobody wanted to listen to me. We put that on our complicated journey and the fact that it was our first baby.” Because Raphaël, aged one and a half months, was born with laparoschisis (an absence of closure of the abdominal wall at the level of the intestine) operated at birth. He stayed at the Toulouse University Hospital for a month and only came home 4 days ago.
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On the afternoon of July 31, 2019, the couple once again brought their baby to the emergency room, at the request of their attending physician. Despite the doctor’s request, Raphaël is not treated as a priority and is only seen more than an hour after his arrival. The baby is examined by the same pediatrician as two days earlier, who diagnoses gastroenteritis. “We came across as stressed parents. The pediatrician did not listen to us and she refused to do new tests other than a blood test”, remembers the mother. Their son was then placed on a drip to be rehydrated, but his condition continued to deteriorate. “He was screaming, he was screaming, never stopping. He hit his face with his drip, it was very violent”she adds, her voice punctuated by sobs. “I had my baby in my arms, I saw his marbled belly and the blood which stopped circulating. My son was in respiratory distress and hypothermia but no one noticed.”
It is finally with the arrival of another pediatrician, an hour later, that everything accelerates. The doctor immediately notes the seriousness of the baby’s state of health and suspects necrotizing enterocolitis (a pathology that attacks the tissues of the intestine). Raphaël was then intubated, placed in an artificial coma and transferred by helicopter to the Purpan hospital in Toulouse for surgery. He suffers from a volvulus (a turning of the intestine) and from a significant necrosis. The baby passed away on August 2, 2019.
This Monday, July 25, the administrative court of Montpellier (Hérault) recognizes the responsibility of the two hospitals in the death of the baby, but at different levels.
The responsibility for the death of Raphaël is attributed up to 75% to the hospital of Perpignan. The repeated misdiagnoses of the baby have “leads to necrosis, then to total loss of the small intestine and death of the child” recognized the court.
“The death is attributable to a three-day delay in diagnosis before an unrecognized occlusive picture, which should have had the child transferred to a specialized environment.”
Excerpt from the expert report issued on August 31, 2020
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The Toulouse University Hospital (Haute-Garonne) is also recognized as responsible for this death, up to 25%. The court reproaches him for not having informed the parents of the risk of complications due to his first operation. The doctors advised the parents to go to the Perpignan hospital in the event of vomiting, while the establishment is not authorized to take charge of this type of pathology.
In his expert report, the doctor concludes: “a cascade of errors followed one another to lead to a delay in diagnosis of several days”. The management of the Perpignan hospital refused to speak.
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