I’m looking at the body of a child who should not be dead. Pure and simple. This was absolutely avoidable. He wasn't born with some sort of devastating genetic condition, he didn’t suffer a cot death, nor was he struck down by an infection so serious his system couldn’t fight it off.
“What the hell were you thinking? Why would you take that risk?” is what the mother in me wants to say to the parents of this beautiful 18 month old who has just drowned while left alone in the paddling pool.
His mother left him alone while she went inside. She says she left him for two minutes. We don’t know how long it was but when she came back outside she found her baby floating lifeless in the water.
An ambulance was called and arrived within minutes. Resuscitation was started immediately and continued on the journey to hospital. We were waiting to receive him.
The nurse in me puts aside my personal feelings as we work on him for 40 minutes, acutely aware that with every passing second his chances of surviving unscathed are diminishing. Now is the time to rely on policy and procedure, not to give way to emotions and feelings. My colleague, the resuscitation team leader with the weight of the world on his shoulders, asks if any of us believed there is anything else to be tried. I look around the room at a group of professionals who know that we have done everything we could and are still reluctant to admit it’s not enough.
The child’s father is in the room as we agree to stop trying to resuscitate his son and I encourage him to hold the child’s hand. We haven’t been able to persuade the mother to come into the room but I can hear her sobs from outside as she sits with a colleague. I have a strong feeling that she should be in here. I know from evidence and from experience that parents are better able to accept the loss of a child if they have witnessed the resuscitation attempt. Whatever the circumstances, this is a mother who has lost a child, something no parent should have to endure.
Afterwards I sit with the child’s father as he holds his dead son. He is inconsolable as I would expect him to be. He talks to the child and tells him to wake up, he calls his name and strokes his cheek. I feel a wave of emotion that I can’t quite define; a mix of compassion, and dread about how to respond, maybe something else I can’t put my finger on.
I tell him I’m sorry but he can't hear you, he’s dead. I know that I need to avoid euphemisms: ‘passed away’ won’t do, it might be misinterpreted, but ‘dead’ feels unbearably harsh. A new wave of realisation hits the father and grief washes over him again. He’s rocking and crying, asking God for strength, for a miracle. He asks me how will he get over this and I draw on my own experience of losing a loved one and tell him ‘you won’t get over it, but you’ll find a way to live with it’. I have no idea whether these words comfort him, but he is quieter for a moment and holds his son a bit closer.
In my professional capacity, my role is to provide the best possible care during the resuscitation attempt according to evidence and protocols, and then to make death the best it can be, all the time suspending judgement and leaving my personal feelings aside. This is a fine balance: I can only be a good nurse if I give enough of myself to feel compassion and empathy, but sometimes my core values and beliefs are challenged by the choices people make and the actions they take and that creates inner conflict for me. This is the human side of healthcare and this is why my job is hugely demanding as well as being wonderfully rewarding.
In the hours that follow, the safeguarding team and police are involved, as they are for any unexpected child death. Questions are asked and investigations begun. This may be recorded as a tragic accident. Or there may be enough concern from the various professionals involved that a child protection case is opened by Children’s Services. Maybe the police will decide to prosecute.
For now, I reflect on the case myself and I lose sleep over it. One of my colleagues comments that we’ve all done things we regret as parents, taken risks that we probably shouldn’t have. But have we taken risks like this?
I try to make sense of it. Is it like co-sleeping with a tiny baby even though the advice is not to bring them into your bed? Is it like allowing a toddler to run a little too far ahead of you on the pavement? Is it like allowing a child to play with toys he’s not quite old enough for and might choke on? Not leaving children alone near water is a basic rule of parenting. Everyone knows that, don’t they?
I can’t feel ok about this. Not as a nurse or as a mother. I cannot accept that this chance was worth taking. Not for two minutes. Not for two seconds. The risk was just too great. I talk it though with a colleague and he names the emotion for me: I am angry. I am so angry with this child’s mother for allowing this to happen, for allowing this senseless loss of life.
This one will stay with me for a long time. I don’t know what the ending will be for this child’s parents. I do know that life will never be the same for them. As a nurse I want answers for this child, to be able to make sense of this senseless loss somehow. As a mother I can barely allow my mind to go there. As a nurse and a mother I am often seen as a problem-solver or a fixer, but this is something that can't be fixed.
No comments:
Post a Comment