GRAPHIC WARNING: Some of the images included in this article are graphic and may be disturbing to some.
Three-year-old Emmy is “doing well” Tuesday morning, after an IV complication at the Stollery Children’s Hospital left her hand badly injured.
Her mother, Jalena Gunther, said Emmy started perking up on Monday at 5 p.m. when medical staff took the IV out of her uninjured hand.
“That just changed everything,” Gunther said. “She could feed herself, communicate, she was telling them which songs she wanted to sing. Since then, she’s been a lot happier and more settled and just more herself.”
“I cried tears of happiness because I just missed my happy girl.”
Emmy had surgery on Jan. 16 to repair a hole in her heart and was expected to go home early the following week. Gunther said on Friday evening, staff at the Stollery hooked up an IV and started giving morphine. Emmy started fussing. Gunther said she told the nurses and Emmy’s grandmother also asked a doctor to check in on the toddler, who has Down’s syndrome and is non-verbal.
When the day nurse came in Saturday morning, she checked Emmy’s hand and immediately removed the IV, Gunther said.
A doctor and plastic surgeon were called and the three-year-old was immediately taken into surgery.
Since then, Emmy’s had two surgeries on her hand and is scheduled for a third on Tuesday afternoon. Gunther said the doctor will then decide whether to clear out more dead skin and re-wrap her hand or, if it’s clean and settled enough, do a skin graft.
“If they do the skin graft, they’re going to take some skin from her thigh to patch her hand. Thankfully, she’ll have at least a break from surgeries for five days while it heals and then they’ll open the hand bandages back up and see if it’s taken.”
Gunther said the long-term impacts of this injury are still not known. Her biggest worry is that her daughter — who uses sign language — would lose her ability to communicate. Her mom said Emmy has started wiggling her fingers and moving her arm more but will have “lots of scars” and reduced sensation in one hand.
Watch below: An Edmonton mother is accusing the Stollery Children’s Hospital of negligence after complications with her daughter’s IV line. Julia Wong explains.
On Monday afternoon, an AHS spokesperson said the organization’s sympathies and thoughts remain with the family and little girl.
“We are doing all we can to make sure she receives the care she needs. We continue to work closely with this family, and have spoken with them several times to answer any questions or concerns they may have. We will continue to be available to the family at any time.
“We have begun a Quality Assurance Review into this case. A Quality Assurance Review (QAR) aims to determine what happened, how it happened, and what can be done to improve care for future patients.
“If changes are recommended following this review, those changes will be made.”
Monday was a busy day for the family.
Gunther confirmed unit managers and “higher ups at the Stollery” stopped by and “expressed their condolences and sincere apologies and explained that they’re doing a quality control investigation to see exactly what happened and where things went wrong and how they can fix it in the future, as well as investigating the staff responsible for what happened.”
She said she’s glad the Stollery is taking this situation seriously.
“I don’t want it to happen to another child because it never should have happened — period. I want them to make changes so that it never happens again.”
Her message to other patients and families?
“Nurses and doctors are human. They’re all different. If you think something is wrong, don’t stop fighting.
“Don’t wait around for the doctor and the nurse… If you think something is wrong, fight. They don’t always know best… Parents, we know best and we need to be the biggest voice in their medical care.
“Sometimes nurses and doctors make you feel like you don’t know as much as they do, but you know your child.”