A mother is preparing to take legal action after her toddler was given the wrong dose of morphine following heart surgery at a children’s hospital in Glasgow.
Ellie McAdam’s two-year-old son Theo was given the wrong dose of the painkiller following surgery at the Royal Hospital for Children.
She says Theo was given a tenth of the morphine needed following a heart operation, which caused him to wake up in agony in June 2024.
Ellie, from Peterhead in Aberdeenshire, told STV News: “He’s only just started sleeping again. You couldn’t leave him in a room alone – he’s like a shell of the child he was before.”
Ellie McAdamTheo was four-weeks-old when he needed the first of two open-heart surgeries.
After his second operation, he was recovering well, so he was taken off sedation and given morphine.
Ellie says she later learned the dose was substantially lower than the amount he needed to manage the pain – just 1.5mg instead of 20mg.
“The consultant came into the room and said, ‘We’re really sorry, there’s been a mistake, someone has made an error with the medicine,” she said.
Ellie McAdam“He was meant to be on 20mg, but the infusion made up is ten times weaker.’ That’s next to no pain relief, considering his chest had been cracked.”
She said her son was “scared and in agony” and ripped all his lines out, collapsing his own lung.
Theo now has a paralysed diaphragm due to the incident.
“We were in intensive care, pinning our own son to the bed, trying to hold an oxygen mask over his face,” Ellie said.
“We had to leave the room, partly because it was traumatising, partly because they were trying to stabilise Theo again. I was covered in his blood.
“And you’re thinking, this is where he’s meant to be safest.”
STV NewsEllie says she’s lost faith in the system and is planning legal action against the board.
She told STV News she was prompted to speak out after learning of what happened to eight-week-old Zohan Ul Hassan.
He is currently in a critical condition at the Royal Hospital for Children after being being given 200mg of paracetamol instead of 20mg.
“It’s retraumatising me,” Ellie said. “It brings back everything they went through. You know what it’s like, sitting there not knowing if you’re going home together.
“The hospital is fantastic. Most of the nurses and doctors are fantastic – we’ve had a lot of good experiences there. But that’s all wiped out by one really bad one.
“It means that when we go down again, I don’t want to leave his side, and I don’t want him medicated when I’m not there.”
She added: “It’s awful to think that twice we’ve almost not brought our little boy home. Nothing convinces me that next time will be any different.”
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde has issued an apology to Theo’s family and promised to investigate.
Dr Claire Harrow, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde’s deputy medical director for acute services, said: “We have apologised unreservedly to the family of patient Theo McAdam for this error and for the impact this had on the care he received.
“This incident is the subject of a Significant Adverse Event Review, which is still ongoing.
“Theo’s family will continue to be involved in the review, and they will be fully informed of its findings.”
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