After the tragic case in Portimão of eight-year-old Paulo Rafael Silaghi – who died in October after repeated medical visits for a misdiagnosed case of appendicitis – another child has died in a Portuguese state hospital. The case is being investigated by the authorities while the girl’s parents allege negligence.
Four-year-old Rafaela died on Sunday, November 17 after what was considered “a routine operation” for sleep apnea at Hospital Padre Américo in Penafiel.
The child’s mother, Fernanda Nunes, told Jornal de Notícias (JN) that her daughter was left to suffer for nine hours before she died without being seen by a doctor.
“A doctor never came to see her, despite the alerts,” she told the newspaper.
According to TVi24, Rafaela was the first of 17 children admitted to the surgical block, and when she came out of the operation she woke up “fine”. It was shortly afterwards that she began vomiting and showing other complications.
Her parents said that for “the long hours” when their daughter was vomiting and showing other warning signs, she was only seen by a nurse and that “no doctor came” to check on her, “even though her father expressly asked the help of one that he saw passing in the corridor”.
It was only at 6pm after the child “had begun to foam at the mouth” and when her “eyes were rolled backwards” that doctors finally came to see her, said the parents.
Rafaela was quickly transferred to Hospital de S. João in Porto, but “there was already nothing that could be done”, reported the newspaper. Rafaela died the following day and was buried on Thursday last week.
Rafaela’s organs were used to save three other children. “In the midst of so much pain, it is good to know other children won’t have to suffer the same fate,” Rafaela’s godfather Marco Nunes told the Correio da Manhã newspaper.
Meantime, the incident is being investigated by the Inspectorate-General for Health Activities (IGAS – Inspecção-Geral das Actividades em Saúde) and it is reported that doctors at the Penafiel hospital are in a state of shock over the tragedy.
Sleep apnea is a disorder that affects hundreds of thousands of people all over the world. It is characterised by pauses in breathing during sleep.
