Baby boy sent home with Calpol dies of swollen heart

Hospital staff said one-year-old Jack Garland was merely suffering from teething troubles and gave his parents Calpol to help ease the pain.

A fortnight later, a doctor discovered Jack had an enlarged heart and needed emergency surgery. But he died two weeks later.

Jack's parents yesterday criticised doctors for failing to spot the genetic defect when the X-ray was originally taken.

His mother, Zara Williams, 24, said that when she first took her son to their local A&E department he was not eating or drinking, had become 'floppy' and was suffering from a high temperature and diarrhoea.

He was kept in hospital overnight and an X-ray was taken, but he was sent home the next day.

Two weeks later, Jack - described by Miss Williams as a "really happy and cheeky boy" - was displaying the same symptoms.

His mother said: "I took him back to the hospital and when they said they wanted to X-ray him I told the doctors they had done that already.

"The doctor came back and he looked quite sick and said he needed another X-ray and then told us Jack's heart was enlarged.

"He said it was clear on the first X-ray so either nobody looked at it or they looked at the wrong one."

Jack died from the rare condition mitochondrial respiratory complex at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London in February, a month after being sent home from the Royal Cornwall Hospital in Truro. Miss Williams and her partner Ben Garland, a mechanic, who live in Truro, have received a letter of apology from the hospital.

Its investigation failed to find out exactly what happened but pointed to a failure of the system rather than individual error.

The letter said: "The doctor is at a loss to explain how this could have happened and can only deduce that the person who reported Jack's X-ray reported on the wrong film."

Despite the apology, the couple remain furious about the way their son was treated.

The only way to treat the condition is by heart transplant, the success of which would not be guaranteed.

But Mr Garland, 31, said the blunder had cost Jack his dignity in his last weeks alive as he fought the condition in vain at Great Ormond Street.

He added: "We'll never forget holding him while they turned off the machines."

A spokesman for the hospital offered "sincere condolences" to the couple and said a review of procedures was being carried out.