Two-year-old fingers are dead – care is criticized

It is at the end of May that a two-year-old boy arrived at the Helsingborg lasarett orthopedics box with his mother. The boy had so clenched his index finger in the door of an elevator that a piece of his finger went away. The mother brought her finger and was sewn. Health staff said that the operation had gone well and that it would be completed by seven days of penicillin.

Akutmottagningen på Helsingborgs lasarett.picture: Sven-Erik Svensson

But it was difficult to get the boy's penicillin. The mother writes in her request to the Ivo, the inspection of care, that she explained to the health care professional that the boy was spitting and devouring the drug. She feared that her finger would be infected and returned to the emergency with the boy several times in the following days.

The mother wanted to take care of the staff remove the dressing on the finger and look for how it healed. But we would avoid opening the bandage. On the other hand, the finger was X-rayed a second time, in addition to the x-ray made the same day that the boy went up.

After a week, the boy was sent to the surgeon at Skåne University Hospital, Sus, Malmö. When the finger was examined, it was found that the alleged jaw was dead. In order to recover, the boy continued to take penicillin and painkillers for several weeks.

Ivo gives the mother the right to the orthopedic bag in Helsingborg should have consulted the specialists in Malmo earlier, already the day the boy was injured. Notably because he was a two year old who was suffering from an injury to broken fingers, a large sore and had seen the leg between his fingers. The dressing should also have been changed and the wound examined in the day.

"This type of injury usually requires special skills in hand surgery, especially in children." Ivo writes in his decision.

However, it is not certain that the boy's finger could have been saved, even though he had received the surgeon's hand immediately. He also acknowledges the mother who writes in her notice that he never knows if his finger was finished, but this pain and disappointment could have been alleviated if the boy had immediately received the help of a specialist.