After Kelsey Bond gave birth to premature twin boys on December 23, at 29 weeks, she took one of her newborn sons, Kayden, home a week later.
His twin, Kieran, remained in hospital with a lung condition and other complications, until his mother received a phone call on the morning of February 21.
She was told the nurse feeding her son had fallen asleep while holding him “and woke up to him crying on the floor,” Bond told The Intelligencer.
“She said she was sorry… and that a paediatrician had looked at him and said he was fine,” Bond said. “I was more or less in shock, so I didn’t really say anything. I just kinda hung up.”
According to a hospital document obtained by Bond, the fall took place at around 3am.
“They didn’t call me for five hours,” she told The Intelligencer. “You’re supposed to be notified right away.”
The report details that the baby “possibly slid down from her [the nurse’s] lap but mechanism of fall is unclear; Kieran cried, no documented loss of consciousness… assessed by the paedriatrician on call after the fall and no abnormalities were noted.”
Bond wasn’t convinced, and had Kieran transferred from Belleville General Hospital in Ontario to another hospital, Kingston, for further tests.
A CT scan revealed a depressed fracture in his skull and an acute subdural haematoma.
“I had a gut feeling that everything wasn’t ok,” Bond says. “It did look like his head was a little bit swollen and red on the left-hand side.”
Kieran was eventually released from hospital on March 2, and now Bond has decided to sue Belleville General Hospital for neglect.
“The nurse is not suspended; she has not been fired; there is no punishment for her,” Bond says. “If she was tired, she shouldn’t have gone to work. She’s risking children’s lives, and these aren’t just normal, full-term babies. They need special care.”
But a hospital spokesman has told The Toronto Sun that the nurse involved was a “very experienced, highly qualified, great nurse.”
They have launched an investigation into the incident and have apologised to the Bond family.
“We are devastated and so sorry that this baby fell while in our care,” Quinte Health Care’s Carol Smith Romeril said. “We certainly recognise and apologise for the anxiety and the stress this has added to the family despite the fact they’ve been through so much already.”
“The staff are just excellent and provide really compassionate and professional care. Our staff are also human and so when things like this happen we are really sorry.”
But the apology isn’t enough for Bond. “This is my child’s life,” she said. “An apology doesn’t fix what’s happened.”
She says Kieran “seems to be doing better” but is more of a “high needs” baby than his brother.