A mum has paid tribute to her “happy, loveable and feisty” two-year-old daughter who died from rare complications following keyhole surgery.
Jess Moore – who suffered from the rare chromosomal disorder Wolf-Hirschhorn Syndrome whose main features include delayed growth and development, heart and kidney problems and seizures – passed away at the Great North Children’s Hospital at the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle two days after the operation in November 2019 to ease persistent vomiting.
An inquest into the little girl’s death held at Newcastle Coroner’s Court heard she suffered multiple-organ failure, and internal bleeding and liver damage complicated by her underlying health condition.
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Speaking after the inquest a heartbroken Ashleigh Thompson described her youngest daughter as “happy, loveable, a bit feisty as well. She used to bully her big sisters but she doted on her big brother. Everyone loved her. She was a proper, happy child.
“She would be ill and I remember going to hospital with her and she was poorly herself, but she’d break her neck because there was a little kid crying. She’d always try and cheer up little kids. She was just dead friendly and loveable. She was cheeky as well.”
Ashleigh, 38, who attended the inquest with Jess’ father, John Moore, 34, said finding out her youngest daughter had Wolf-Hirschhorn Syndrome after she was born early due to complications, had been “a massive shock. She had been in special care for about the first six weeks of her life. It was only the week before she was discharged that we were told she had Wolf-Hirschhorn Syndrome, and we had to wrap our head around it in a week.
“But she never caused an issue or anything. She was a dead good baby. She hardly cried. She was a perfect baby. There wasn’t any difference to her to any other baby apart from her feeding issues.
“She only ever had to have three operations in her life. She had heart surgery when she was eight-months-old and that caused a stroke and two massive seizures two days later, but she recovered well from it.
“She bounced back quick; she bounced back better than she was beforehand. She always seemed to bounce back from things.”
Ashleigh – who is also mum to Shannon, 19, Skye, 17, and Mackenzie, 11 – said Jess had undergone the keyhole laparoscopic fundoplication surgery at the Great North Children’s Hospital to give her a better quality of life because of her frequent vomiting.
The inquest heard that Jess had a background of Wolf-Hirschhorn Syndrome, as well as a number of health issues, which included epilepsy, and in her short life had had cardiac surgery.
She had been admitted to the Great North Children’s Hospital on November 5, 2019, where she underwent the laparoscopic fundoplication procedure (keyhole surgery) to treat her vomiting by tightening the muscles at the bottom of the oesophagus to prevent acid reflux.
Following surgery Jess was recovering well but on the evening of November 6 her temperature spiked and she was given medication to help. Her bowel was noted to be tender and feeding was stopped but then restarted. But hours later her condition deteriorated rapidly and her abdomen had swelled.
Jess was rushed to theatre on the evening of November 7 and underwent another operation which showed she was suffering from internal bleeding. The source of the bleeding couldn’t be identified. Jess’ condition continued to worsen and she died early in the evening of November 7.
Delivering a narrative verdict, Senior Coroner Karen Dilks said Jess died “due to extremely rare complications of a paediatric surgical procedure.”
Earlier she had said the fundoplication surgery had been “appropriately undertaken,” and there were “no concerns, instabilities or bleeding during it.”
Mrs Dilks said that on the balance of probabilities, the medical causes of death had been first multi organ failure, secondly internal bleeding and retraction induced left liver necrosis during a laparoscopic fundoplication procedure undertaken on November 5, 2019 for gastroesophageal reflux disease, with Jess’ underlying Wolf-Hirschhorn Syndrome complicating her condition.
She added that she made no judgement on the surgery itself. She said: “It is an acknowledgement that surgery can, albeit rarely, lead to complications that are perhaps previously unknown or unexpected.”
Ashleigh said the verdict was the one she had thought. "I feel like it fits more than anything else.”
