February 13th 2025.
William Hewes was a young and active university student, who tragically passed away within 24 hours of being admitted to the hospital. His family believes that the hospital staff did not act quickly enough to save his life, despite the pleas of his own mother, who is a doctor at the same hospital.
William's mother, Deborah Burns, has been a consultant paediatrician at the east London hospital for over two decades. She was deeply concerned when her son was admitted to the hospital in January 2023, suffering from meningitis and sepsis. As per national guidelines, the hospital was supposed to administer life-saving antibiotics within an hour of his arrival. However, this did not happen, and William sadly passed away.
During the inquest into his death, it was revealed that the emergency medicine registrar on duty that night, Rebecca McMillan, became emotional as she recalled the events. She expressed her regret and shared that she believed William might not survive from the moment she saw him. She also mentioned that she had clearly instructed the nurses to give William the necessary antibiotics, but she was not sure if they had understood her.
Dr. McMillan left the emergency area at 12:42 am and expected the antibiotics to be administered within 10 minutes. However, when she checked on William at 1:17 am, she realized that he still had not received the medicine. She even had a conversation with a nurse outside the resuscitation room, where they both expressed their confusion and disappointment at the situation.
The court also heard from Luke Lake, the medical registrar on duty that night, who discovered that the antibiotics had not been given to William. He had gone to investigate after noticing that they were not on the digital drugs chart. It was his inquiry that brought Dr. McMillan's attention to the issue. However, there was some confusion about whether Dr. Burns, William's mother, had informed Dr. Lake about the missed medication. Both Dr. McMillan and Dr. Lake admitted that they may have treated Dr. Burns differently because she was a senior consultant, and they may have been more frank with her if she was a layperson.
Dr. Lake also mentioned that he would have been able to better understand Dr. Burns' concerns if he had spoken to her one-on-one, as she repeatedly asked the nursing staff about the antibiotics and the urgency of giving them to her son. However, Luke Brown, the senior charge nurse on duty that night, admitted that he did not ask his team if they had administered the medicine, assuming that they had done so. He also stated that he trusted his team to escalate any issues, but unfortunately, they did not speak up.
Luke Brown also mentioned that he has learned from this incident and would be more vigilant in the future, especially in cases of sepsis where time is of the essence. However, he also explained that he had a heavy workload that night, with 60 to 80 other patients to look after. The inquest into William Hewes's death continues, and his family hopes that lessons will be learned to prevent such tragedies from happening in the future.
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