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The Canberra Times Tuesday 16 July 1991 p1. The tragic story of baby Ty Scutts and his Canberra operation that went terribly wrong. Ty was admitted to hospital early on August 23, 1984. He was a normal and good-looking baby, the Scutts second child. He was already sitting and had just started to prop himself up on his hands and knees to crawl backwards. Mrs Scutts didn't see the surgeon nor the anesthetist before the operation. The only conversation she had had with him about the circumcision had been some months before at her routine post-natal consultation when he had recommended it after examining the baby's foreskin. First, industrial action at the hospital, and then a mild chest infection in Ty, had delayed the surgery. It was a nurse in the day-patients ward who asked her to sign the consent form. Ty was back from surgery in what seemed no time at all and was ready to be discharged by lunch-time. Mrs Scutts, relieved and happy, picked up her other child, four-year old Felicity, from the babysitter's, and went home. As soon as she got there she went to change him, heeding the nurse's advice of "Change his nappy as you would normally and do not fuss around". She unpinned it, and found it soaked with fresh blood. She could see blood dripping from his penis. Frightened and panic-stricken, Mrs Scutts bundled both children back into the car and rushed to casualty. About 40 minutes later, the surgeon arrived and examined Ty. "This is a hard decision to make,"he said. "The bleeding has stopped. "A few minutes later he said, "It won't take five minutes. I'm going down there to check the plastibell and investigate where the bleeding is coming from." It was about 2pm., Mother worried and helpless. In a statement made later, Mrs Scutts said she was not asked to sign a consent form and was not aware that there was going to be a second operation. "I was not told that Ty was to have an anaesthetic," she said. "I did not meet nor have any discussion with an anesthetist." (It was not until the next day that Mr Scutts was asked to sign a consent form, which it appears was then back-dated. Within half an hour, Mrs Scutts was already anxious. She had dashed from the house without giving Felicity lunch and without her purse to buy her some and the child was hungry. She asked the nurse how long Ty would be. "They are still in theatre," she was told. Three more times she asked. She was very worried and felt helpless. At 4.30pm Mr Scutts joined her in casualty where she was still waiting. "There is something gone wrong, they are keeping me in the dark," she said. Mr Scutts went to the nurse and asked again what was taking so long. "I don't know, I rang theatre and they said they should be up in 10 to 15 minutes," she said. At 5.15 pm the surgeon, accompanied by the anesthetist, came to see them. The surgeon was visibly distressed and had obviously been crying. "Something had gone wrong," he said. A million-in-one chance. He took a man-sized fit and then a cardiac arrest and died for 43 minutes. He is in a deep sleep." Ty Scutts, his father, Alan, and mother, Sally-Anne, at a friend's home in O'Connor. "You mean a coma?" Mr Scutts asked. "Yes," said the surgeon. The baby's parents were taken to intensive care. Mrs Scutts breaks down as she recalls that moment. Her baby was shaking and fitting. He had tubes everywhere, leads to his chest and was attached to a monitor. The doctor said she could touch him but she turned away.
"I couldn't touch him," she says. "It wasn't the same boy I took in in the morning. He was attached to tubes and machines. I demanded to go home. He wasn't my little boy." Mrs Scutts couldn't bring herself to see him again for some time: she was in dreadful shock, and withdrew into herself, eventually becoming very ill. But Mr Scutts and his father-in-law maintained an almost constant vigil by his bed, talking to him, stroking him and surrounding him with his favourite toys. The doctors said he would die, it was just a matter of time. He was christened in the presence of family and friends who'd crowded into the intensive care ward. "It was really nice" Mrs Scutts says. "They put the christening dress on." As she looked at him lying there she thought he wouldn't survive and that if he did he would be a "vegetable all his life". Desperation overtook her. No support for grief and shock. The next day she was admitted to hospital with acute pneumonia and nervous exhaustion. Ty, meanwhile, came out of the coma and was transferred to the pediatric ward. Mr Scutts took the baby to her in her room and encouraged his wife to feed him his bottle. It was a gesture that re-established the temporarily shaken bond between mother and baby. Incredibly, however, the parents still hadn't been offered any support or professional counselling for their grief, shock or anger. They never were. The nursing staff had been forbidden to discuss the matter or to speculate on what had gone wrong. So Mr and Mrs Scutts sat and waited, Ty propped up in a cot, his circumcision wound healing and his future shattered. A woman whose baby was in the same ward remembers a circle of doctors and medical staff surrounding the cot, and without looking Mr Scutts in the eye, pronouncing soberly words to the effect, "Look, we don't know what went wrong exactly. You're just going to have to accept that he's got severe brain damage and you'll have to find out about therapy and things like that." The spectator watched in disbelief as the family was left floundering on their own to try to come to terms with the enormity of how their lives had changed. Once, she asked a nurse what had happened to him, and as the nurse began to talk the head sister came up and stopped her, reprimanding her severely. The walls of defence were up well and truly. "I just held this little kid who screamed," Mr Scutts says of that week in the children's ward. "They destroyed his life. And they can't fix it. No-one even wanted to speak to us. After a week they were told they may as well take him home. There was nothing that could be done for him in hospital. The administrator of nursing asked to see them. In an interview that lasted no more than six minutes they were told the hospital was sorry that it had happened.
They were asked whether they wanted to sign discharge papers to take him home, or an application form to have him admitted to an institution. When they said they would be taking their baby home with them the administrator suggested they go see a social worker so they could find out about getting a handicapped child's pension. As they were leaving a friend who worked in the hospital told the Scutts that there was a lot of talk going on about what had happened to Ty and that something was being covered up. "I think you'd better see a solicitor," she said. It was the first anyone had suggested to the Scutts that Ty's tragedy was perhaps something other than bad luck, more than just the "million to one" fluke they believed it to be. The family couldn't wait to get out of Canberra. Mrs Scutts, who had grown up here and lived much of her married life here, now hated it and she still hates to come back. Mr Scutts resigned from his job and within a week or so of Ty's discharge the family made the nightmare trip to Dungog to live with Mrs Scutts family. Ty screaming and fitting almost all the way. They still live there, now in a separate caravan, so that Ty's cries and restless nights do not disturb the rest of the household. Ty's development has been halted at the level of a nine-month old for the past four years. He can't walk or talk and probably never will be able to. It is only relentless hard work by his family, including his two devoted sisters, Felicity and Que, 5, that has got him to his present level where he can say "Mum" and "Dad" and roll himself along. "The hardest thing was getting used to the piercing cerebral crying," Mrs Scutts said. When he'd left hospital he had not even been able to roll over — and they were warned he could be bedridden for life. It was only this year that they were able to get him into a special school for the intellectually disabled at Maitland. Since then he has progressed remarkably, he has been taught to use a standing frame and begun toilet training. Earlier this year Mr Hohnen's legal team was joined by Dr Lyn Fong, a medical practitioner from Sydney who had studied law part-time and been admitted to the ACT bar. Her medical knowledge was invaluable in interpreting the many technical issues involved in the case. Ty's parents sustained a nervous shock claim against the anesthetist. Mr Scutts received $20,000 and Mrs Scutts $40,000 — modest sums when costs are deducted. Nervous shock claims are rare in the ACT and awards notoriously low. Yet the effect on the Scutts has been devastating. Mr Scutts describes himself as no longer the happy-go-lucky person he was. He has taken on the responsibility of caring for his handicapped son with conviction and dedication, and carries the bulk of the huge commitment on his own shoulders. Mrs Scutts has frequent bouts of depression, often being overwhelmed by the sheer physical and emotional work.
They say, with poignant understatement, that had they known how things would turn out they would never have had the operation done. Ty's parents applied, successfully, to the court yesterday for the go-ahead to buy a suitable home and a myriad of equipment that will make his life a bit easier. Mr Scutts told the court he was planning to set up a well-equipped carpentry workshop in the yard, so that Ty's adult years could be spent as constructively as possible. The legalities are finally over. The tragedy still has a life-time to run. The Canberra Times, Tuesday 16 July 1991 p1. Article. Parents six-year fight for $1.5m damages by MARION FRITH. Ty Scutts was a bonny five-month old when he was admitted to Royal Canberra Hospital (North) in August, 1984, for a circumcision, an operation recommended by his doctor for medical reasons. It was nothing to worry about, his parents were told; it was routine and minor surgery: he'd be home again the same day. But something went very wrong during that operation — a "million to one chance" the doctors said — and when the baby was finally discharged two weeks later he was severely brain damaged, and suffering a litany of medical tragedies: quadriplegia, epilepsy, spasticity and mental retardation. Yesterday, after six gruelling and heart-breaking years, young Ty Scutts received $1.5 million by way of settlement in legal proceedings against the anesthetist. This did not, however, involve any admissions of liability. And as Ty is still an infant the ACT Supreme Court had to formally approve the compromise settlement. The award, the highest made in the ACT in a medico-legal case and one of the highest in Australia, is a testimony to dogged perseverance, both by his parents, Alan and Sally-Anne Scutts, of Dungog, NSW, and their legal advisers, Peter Hohnen, Steve Walmsley, and Hal Sperling, QC, to breakthrough the seemingly impenetrable medical ranks that closed around the doctors almost as soon as the terrible news was broken to the family. It took Mr Hohnen three long and bitterly frustrating years to find any specialist anesthetists who were prepared to come forward and testify on Ty's behalf. The medical profession,it seems, sticks together. |