Parents of child who died of flu after hospital failure speak out about five years of waiting for answers

The grieving parents of a child who died of flu after a “catalogue of failures” by a hospital say they are still waiting for answers over their daughter’s tragic death.

Cristiana Banciu died in January 2020 after a rare reaction to flu while in the care of King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.

In 2021, a survey identified multiple failures on the part of trusted personnel who “failed to provide basic medical care” to the two-year-old.

Three years later, the trust agreed to pay his parents Alexandru and Georgiana £25,000 following civil action for mourning costs and to cover Cristiana’s funeral costs.

However, the couple claim the trust failed to acknowledge legal liability and did not send them a formal apology directly – the apology only came through the media.

Parents want to be reassured: such a tragic incident will not happen again.

Mr Banciu, 37, said: “Losing Cristiana is a nightmare from which we will never wake up. Nothing will bring her back, but we just want those who did something wrong to admit it and apologize.

“We never cared about money – no amount could replace our beautiful daughter – but we wanted answers and a promise that lessons would be learned so this wouldn’t happen to anyone else.

“What we are experiencing, I would not wish it on my worst enemy. You go to sleep hoping that everything that happened was just a nightmare and you wake up the next morning and it wasn’t. But hope never goes away.

“Life was good when Cristiana was here, but I feel like a part of us died with her. A light went out. We do not live; we’re just surviving until the day we can all be together again.

Mr Banciu, who was once a chef but now works as a cleaner alongside his 33-year-old partner, said that after losing their daughter he could no longer cope with the pressures of his old job.

At Cristiana’s inquest, deputy coroner Jacqueline Devonish said medical professionals “failed to provide basic medical care”, which contributed to her death. The coroner could not, on the balance of probabilities, say she would have survived if she had been treated earlier, but she probably would have had a better chance, describing the failure to record the GCS as “very serious”.

On January 6, 2020, Cristiana was admitted to Princess Royal University Hospital (PRUH) in Orpington just two days before her death. She had been presented as a concerning patient “on several occasions” while in hospital.

Cristiana was then transferred to King’s College Hospital in Demark Hill, where she died on January 8. An investigation by King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust found there was a failure to adequately monitor the toddler on the PRUH ward, a failure to detect his declining neurological condition and a failure to take action on his low Glasgow Coma Score (GCS).

The GCS is used to describe the extent of altered consciousness in all types of acute medical care and trauma patients, and assesses individuals on three aspects of responsiveness: eye opening, motor responses and verbal.

Both hospitals are part of King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.

Jodi Newtonlawyer specializing in medical negligence and partner at Osbornes Lawsaid: “My clients’ lives have been torn apart by the unimaginable pain of losing their only child and all they ever wanted was for those who were at fault to apologize.

“Instead, they have been forced to endure years of unnecessary and protracted litigation and there is still no apology from the trust, even after the multiple failings identified during the investigation and the support of eminent independent experts whom we consulted and who confirmed that they considered the trust to be responsible.

“The family sought to resolve the matter for almost 12 months before it was finally settled, but they were ignored and pushed aside and it was only at the end of the legal process that the trust appeared to come to its senses. case seriously.”

The spokesperson for King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust said in a statement to The Independent: “We would like to apologize to Cristiana’s family for the failings in care during her treatment at King’s, and we are deeply sorry to the Banciu family for their loss.

“We have made a number of changes since Cristiana was treated at King’s in 2020, all focused on improving the care we provide to patients treated in our hospitals.