A LOCAL mother of a 7-month-old has filed for medical arbitration against Shenzhen Maternity & Child Healthcare Hospital for delaying her child’s treatment, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported Friday.

According to the mother, surnamed Xiong, her child was sent to Shenzhen Maternity & Child Healthcare Hospital due to a prolonged fever in December 2018. The child, identified as Xiaoxi, was diagnosed with Kawasaki disease at the hospital. However, Xiaoxi’s condition hadn’t improved after a week of treatment.

Xiong was very anxious and requested a brain examination for Xiaoxi. But a chief physician with the hospital said it would take at least half a month to get a magnetic resonance examination due to the large number of patients in the hospital.

Xiong worried that the prolonged fever would affect the child’s cognitive development and language abilities. On Jan. 14, she decided to take Xiaoxi to Shenzhen Children’s Hospital, where the child was diagnosed with a cerebral hernia instead of Kawasaki disease.

On Jan. 25, Xiong asked Shenzhen Children’s Hospital whether there was a possibility that the child had contracted Kawasaki disease. The hospital’s medical consultation form showed that as the child had a fever, it was most likely related to a subdural empyema.

After more than a month of treatment at the children’s hospital, Xiaoxi has recovered and was discharged from hospital.

Xiong said that Xiaoxi had been hospitalized in the maternity & child healthcare hospital for half a month, however, the hospital never conducted an examination on Xiaoxi’s brain, according to the report.

If the diagnosis is found to be wrong within a few days and the treatment is not effective, the hospital should re-examine the patient to find out whether there is a different cause of the symptoms and adjust the treatment plan, according to Xiong.

Xiong claimed that the maternity & child healthcare hospital should be held responsible for the misdiagnosis and asked for compensation from the hospital. The hospital is also fully responsible for the brain damage and side effects caused by the misdiagnosis, said Xiong.

In a response, the maternity & child healthcare hospital said Xiaoxi met the diagnostic criteria of Kawasaki disease according to the laboratory test results at that time.

As for a brain examination, the hospital denied refusing Xiong’s request, but said there were no abnormalities in the circumference of Xiaoxi’s head as measured by the doctor and a skull magnetic resonance application had also been submitted, according to the report.

According to the maternity and child healthcare hospital, a qualified appraisal body is needed to determine whether there was a fault in the hospital’s diagnosis and treatment. The hospital suggested that the family resort to legitimate methods to resolve the dispute and that it would assume its corresponding responsibilities in accordance with the law.

(Zhang Yu)