Toddler kept in hospital for months despite doctors saying she didn't need to be there
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Loading... - Jack Davis
- 01 Jun 2022
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Lauren Malcolm-Swindells was kept in hospital for months, even though doctors said she didn't need to be there.
While there, her mother was asked to abandon Covid-19 isolation to nurse her because of short-staffing. Anusha Bradley hears how a DHB "communication gap," and a nursing shortage robbed the Malcolm-Swindells of their limited time with Lauren.
The toddler's tiny limbs jerk with every rasping cough and her face turns red as she tries to breathe. Large red digits on a screen next to her hospital cot tick downwards; the three-year-old's blood-oxygen levels are falling. Without missing a beat, her mother, Rachel Malcolm-Swindells, calmly reaches for an oxygen mask hanging on the wall and gently places it over Lauren's mouth with one hand, using the other to caress her small tummy as it heaves with the effort of coughing.
An alarm is triggered as Lauren's oxygen levels continue to drop and her paediatrician, who happens to be visiting, calls out the numbers to her mother as they fall. When the red digits hit 84, Malcolm-Swindells grabs a suction tool, leans over the cot and gently inserts it into her daughter's mouth. "Say ahh," she says as she lowers her smiling face towards Lauren's, looks her in the eye and opens her own mouth wide to show her exactly how it's done.
Lauren, who is profoundly deaf, complies and her mother extracts the mucus blocking her airways. Moments later, her coughing stops, her colour returns and the numbers on the screen tick upwards. Malcolm-Swindells hangs the mask back on the wall, turns, and gives another big smile to her daughter while tickling her tummy.
"Do you want to watch some Paddington on the iPad?" she asks.
Lauren has just experienced a "desaturation" event where her blood-oxygen level can fall dangerously low. On "a good day" this can happen half a dozen times when she's awake, but her condition worsens at night, so Lauren sleeps attached to oxygen and needs monitoring every half hour. When Lauren is unwell - as she is today, recovering from a bug - she might need suctioning "every five minutes for large chunks of the day" to keep her airways clear, Malcolm-Swindells explains.
Because of this and other medical complexities, Lauren suffers, she needs round the clock one-to-one nursing care.
Her parents, through necessity, are skilled in providing this thanks to Lauren's 53 admissions to Wellington Regional Hospital hospital since birth. Put another way, Lauren has spent two-thirds of her life there. Her longest stint out of hospital is just 40 days long.
Lauren's current stay is her longest - nearly five months now - but for most of it there's been no medical reason keeping her there.
Lauren's doctors wanted to discharge her three months ago, provided she had experienced in-home nursing care each night. But despite the DHB making funding available and endless letters and phone calls from both her parents and her medical team to arrange it, Lauren has been forced to remain in hospital.
Her parents are desperate to take her home because they're aware the clock is ticking. "We don't know how long we've got, we were told by our former paediatrician that Lauren probably wouldn't survive childhood, says Malcolm-Swindells.
"It's literally just that time together that we want. When Lauren's in hospital it's incredibly difficult for us to be a family all together."
The family home is up a winding road in the hills above Wellington, where a small red-headed boy stands at the door wearing a cheeky grin and holding a water gun. This is Fraser, Lauren's soon to be six-year-old brother and "easily her favourite person," says Malcolm-Swindells.
It's mid-afternoon and Malcolm-Swindells has just returned from the hospital where she's been looking after Lauren all morning. Now she's waiting to hear if either she or her partner Raymond will be needed to fill in on the night shift later.
The walls of their Lockwood home are adorned with photos: Lauren and Fraser as newborns; Lauren and Fraser face-to-face, laughing like they're sharing a joke; Rachel and Raymond at their wedding last year, holding both kids proudly.
Tucked off the lounge, in the master bedroom, the couple's bed is pushed into the corner to make room for Lauren's cot and all the medical equipment she'll need when she does come home. Read More...
