March 27, 2010
THE family of a young mum who died after doctors failed to spot a cancerous tumour received £350,000 compensation yesterday.
On one hospital visit, doctors told Lavinia Bletchly that her illness was imagined and the 23-year-old, from Bridgend, was sent home from hospital on three separate occasions before she died in March 2005.
A senior consultant told the mother-of-two she needed psychiatric attention before telling her to go home to make room for more urgent cases.
But just four weeks later Miss Bletchly died from peritonitis and malignant non-Hodgkins lymphoma.
She left two daughters, Shaila, nine, and Chloe, six, as well as her partner Justin Tellem.
After a four-year legal battle her family were yesterday awarded damages of £350,000 to help bring up her two young children.
Abertawe Bro Morgannwg NHS Trust apologised in court for the series of blunders.
But her father, Arthur Bletchly, said no amount of money could make up for the family’s loss.
Choking back tears after the hearing, the 57-year-old said: “One of the senior consultants said to her, ‘This is all in your head. You need to get out of this hospital to make way for more urgent cases.’
“That is a terrible thing to say to a young woman with two kids, who only four weeks later was to die.
“Since July last year we have been in a dogfight to sort out how much compensation her two little kids should have, so today is a good day.
“They are lovely little girls and have kept us going.
“Lavinia just wanted to see her children grow up and get married. She loved them so much.
“When Lavinia was in hospital in Newport she didn’t have the strength to speak, so she wrote me a letter.
“It said ‘We have got to fight the trust for everything we can get for my two little girls’.
“But it’s never going to replace their mum. Compensation is no compensation.”
Miss Bletchly, who was studying textile design at the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff, first became unwell in May 2004, just a few months after the birth of her second child.
A number of examinations during the next eight months ruled out gynaecological problems, but she continued to complain of pain in her abdomen and pelvis.
In February 2005 a pelvic ultrasound revealed a cyst and an exploratory operation revealed fluid above the liver.
Over the next three weeks Miss Bletchly was admitted on three separate occasions to the Princess of Wales Hospital in Bridgend.
On March 7, 2005, Miss Bletchly underwent a CT scan, leading to further surgery which revealed an extensive malignant tumour had encased her bowel and spread up to her stomach.
Despite an urgent programme of chemotherapy clinicians admitted her prognosis was not good as the cancer was both aggressive and advanced.
Miss Bletchly then suffered a ruptured bowel which caused peritonitis, leading to multiple organ failure. She died on March 24, 2005.
An out-of-court financial settlement was agreed earlier this year. But because a large portion compensates Miss Bletchly’s two children for the loss of dependency on their mother, the settlement needed to be approved by the courts.
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