The mum says she didn’t realise the extent of the boy’s injury until after the bandage was removed and she saw a deep cut across the width of the one-year-old’s leg
A mum has claimed her one-year-old son was left with ‘a significant scar’ following an accident during a routine skin graft operation.
Troy Bedson was admitted to Liverpool’s Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in February with a burn from hot tea spilling on his arm.
Furious mum, 21-year-old Talisha Brookshaw, was told the boy would need a skin graft, with skin taken from his leg and grafted onto his arm. She was reassured before that the operation at Alder Hey would be uneventful but afterwards she says she was told the surgical team had made a mistake, accidentally cutting the boy’s thigh.
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She claims she was initially told it was “just a nick” but when the bandages were removed she saw a deep cut across the width of Troy’s leg. Talisha, from Crewe, said: “Troy had a burn on his arm from a cup of tea, and we had to go to Leighton Hospital.
“We were then referred to Alder Hey, where we stayed for about three nights. We returned on the morning of February 17, and that’s when they decided he needed a skin graft.
“They took skin off his leg to put on his arm, and during that skin graft, they made a large incision across his leg – this wasn’t supposed to happen at all. They were supposed to shave a very thin piece of skin off his leg, but instead, they’ve sliced it and gone into his leg.”
“He’s got a scar there now, and he was meant to come out of that skin graft with no scars – it wasn’t meant to happen at all.”
Talisha continued: “When they [nurses] first came back and relayed that information to me, it just sounded like they’d nicked him a little with the blade. I didn’t see the scar until a week after, because by the time he’d come out, it was all bandaged up.
“I thought it would be a little nick, but it was quite a big cut. It wasn’t clear what had happened until I went back and they told me a bit more. The staff didn’t say much at first, they just said it would take a few more days to heal.
“I got someone to come over and tell me a bit more about what actually happened during the surgery. Two consultants and the surgeons had put the blade in the completely wrong way and sliced his leg.”
Talisha has since attempted to make a Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS) complaint, but says the complaint was cancelled in order for the hospital to do its own internal review.
Talisha continued: “I thought the person who actually made the mistake would have come and apologised. Maybe that’s not what they do, but I would have wanted to do that. I wish they’d given me an in depth explanation and told me exactly what happened.”
A spokesperson for Alder Hey said they could not comment on individual patients.