Mother demands punishment for misdiagnosed appendicitis in Urals

New details have emerged about the rescue of a 12-year-old boy whom traffic police inspectors transported from a major traffic jam to a Yekaterinburg hospital. His mother has filed a complaint with the Investigative Committee and demanded that doctors who failed to recognize the child«s appendicitis in time be held accountable.

Tatyana Ryavkina told E1.RU that for almost two weeks she took her son to doctors in Sukhoy Log (Sverdlovsk Oblast), but, according to the woman, they were unable to make a correct diagnosis all that time.

“On October 9, my son’s stomach started hurting. I took him to the emergency room of the children’s hospital. A paramedic examined him and diagnosed ‘bile stasis,’ prescribed medication, and sent him home. I immediately bought the medicine at the pharmacy. At home, I gave it to him, he started vomiting, by evening his temperature rose, and I called an ambulance,” says the mother of 12-year-old Dima.

That same day, the mother recalls, the child was taken to the children’s hospital in Sukhoy Log, where a doctor made a new diagnosis.

“They said he had food poisoning, offered to leave him, but I asked, ‘It’s evening, if I leave him, what will you do with him?’ They said, ‘Nothing,’ and I took the child home. They prescribed ‘Smecta,’ I bought it at the pharmacy and started giving it to him,” says the mother.

The treatment didn’t help, the child’s abdominal pain intensified, and the fever didn’t subside. The next day, the parents took their son to the surgical department of the hospital.

“They took Dima’s tests. At five in the morning, a surgeon came down to us, performed abdominal palpation, looked at the test results, and concluded that there was nothing surgical. And he sent us home. At the same time, he said that the blood already showed inflammation,” the mother recalls. — “At eight in the morning, I tried to schedule a paid ultrasound, but there were no spots available. I immediately called the hospital registry and asked to schedule us for an ultrasound. At first they said there were no tickets, but I told them that my child was writhing in pain.”

They did perform an ultrasound on Dima after all. With the study results, the mother immediately ran to the local pediatrician.

Dima was getting worse, he started having temperature spikes: it would drop to 35 degrees Celsius (95°F), then rise to nearly 40 degrees Celsius (104°F), says the mother. The parents took their son to surgery again, from there he was referred to the infectious diseases department. He was hospitalized and examined for a week.

“On October 16, they sent him home to me with a fever and abdominal pain. Discharged him. And on the morning of the 17th, the child again gave blood and urine, and the tests hadn’t changed, they showed inflammation. I said, ‘How can you discharge him?’ They answered, ‘We’re giving you a ticket for the 21st to see a therapist. From our side, we’ve treated him, we didn’t find an infection.’ Norovirus, rotavirus, enterobiasis — all negative. I realized that I was simply losing my son,” says the boy’s mother.

At the appointment with the therapist, the mother demanded that the child have another ultrasound. By that time, the boy had been suffering from pain for the 12th day, and Tatyana was on the verge of a breakdown.

“They gave us a ticket for a kidney ultrasound, the child comes, lies on the couch. I ask them to do a full abdominal examination, the doctor says to me, ‘The ticket is only for a kidney ultrasound.’ I reply, ‘I’ll pay,’ he writes us a check for payment. My husband goes to the cashier in the main building, pays the receipt. After that, the doctor performs the examination and gives the conclusion: peritonitis. He said in the office: we missed the appendicitis,” the child’s mother recounts.

Traffic Jam Due to Road Works

The parents put the child in the car and drove him to Yekaterinburg, to the 9th Hospital. The father drove at breakneck speed — he understood that every minute counted. Near Berezovsky, the car got stuck in a deadlock traffic jam that had formed due to road repairs at the city entrance. The mother saw a traffic police patrol, grabbed the medical certificates, and ran to the inspectors.

“An agitated female passenger got out of the car. She reported that her husband and 12-year-old son with symptoms of acute appendicitis were in the car,” the Traffic Police of Sverdlovsk Oblast said. — “Assessing the child’s condition as critical, the traffic police officers decided to immediately transport the minor and his mother to a medical facility.”

The boy and his mother were transferred to a police car and urgently delivered to the hospital with special signals. Within 15 minutes, the child was handed over to doctors.

“The boy required an emergency operation for acute appendicitis, which was successful. Doctors confirmed that the delivery to the hospital was timely, and delay could have led to serious complications,” the State Traffic Inspectorate said.

Doctors told the mother that the operation was successful and the worst was behind them, but Tatyana worries that the consequences of peritonitis might still manifest later.

“At the 9th Hospital, they told us that even on the first ultrasound we did on the 10th, it was visible that it was appendicitis. But our doctors simply didn’t read it. To this day, no one from our hospital has even called us,” says Tatyana Ryavkina.

Lawyer’s Opinion

On October 28, the boy’s mother wrote a statement to the Investigative Committee of Sverdlovsk Oblast. According to the family’s lawyer Vitaly Anikin, investigators will have to determine if there is doctor negligence in this situation. If proven, the medics face criminal liability.

“If a criminal case is initiated, which we will undoubtedly seek, a commission forensic medical examination will be appointed. During its conduct, experts will investigate the doctors’ actions for compliance with methodologies, correctness of diagnosis, and timeliness of provided assistance. They will investigate whether any errors were made that led to the deterioration of the patient’s condition,” said Vitaly Anikin.

The boy’s parents also intend to go to court to seek moral compensation from the hospital.

The E1.RU editorial board sent a request to the Ministry of Health of Sverdlovsk Oblast. At the time of publication, an immediate response could not be obtained — we will publish it as soon as we receive it. The regional Investigative Committee has so far refrained from commenting.

Earlier we reported how at the 9th Children’s Hospital they saved a five-year-old girl who swallowed ten magnets.

Read other stories about how doctors in Yekaterinburg save children.