Tanya McCartney, pictured with her son Marcus, died the day after she was discharged from hospital (Picture: Family handout)
The heartbroken family of a deaf, young mother who died less than 24 hours after being discharged from A&E have said the hospital’s apology ‘isn’t worth the paper it’s written on’.
Tanya McCartney, 25, was experiencing a high temperature, shortness of breath and a painful throat when her GP told her to go to A&E.
Medics at Chesterfield Royal Infirmary, in Derbyshire, discharged her with antibiotics on May 18, 2023.
The following day she was found dead at home.
A post-mortem examination revealed that the mother, who left behind her 11-month-old boy Marcus, had pneumonia – but this was undetected by the hospital.
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Tanya’s devastated mother, Natasha Johnson, 53, is now urging people who are discharged from hospital despite still feeling very poorly to ‘ask for a second opinion’, because ‘I don’t want anybody to go through what I’m going through’.
Tanya had undiagnosed pneumonia when she died (Picture: Family handout)
Natasha told Metro: ‘I’m heartbroken and angry because I’ve lost my best friend.
‘I expect my kids to outlive me, not the other way around – and Marcus is never, ever going to know his mum.
‘She was a fantastic mother. She was so caring, so patient. Marcus laughed all the time with her.
‘We were so close, we did everything together. If I went to the shops, she went with me.
‘I have a caravan down south and I’d be there and within an hour she’d be phoning me asking “hey, what are you doing?”
‘We would call each other for random, silly things and there are things Marcus will do now that make me think “I need to tell Tanya that” and I can’t.’
Natasha said Tanya had felt ill for a few days before going to her GP and thought she’d caught the cold her son had just recovered from.
The doctors’ surgery told Tanya to go ‘straight to A&E’ – but she felt like she was ‘wasting the hospital’s time’ as staff acted ‘abruptly’ towards her and questioned whether they thought she was ‘putting it on’.
Tanya was discharged and told to come back if her condition worsened.
When Natasha came home that evening to check on Tanya, she found Tanya asleep and breathing heavily.
The next morning, Tanya was still asleep but her breathing was ‘raspy’.
Later that day, Tanya’s grandfather called Natasha while she was at work to tell her Tanya had passed away.
Natasha said: ‘I don’t know how I did it but I drove home. While I was driving home, my son Martin called me and I had to break it to him over the phone.
‘He raced home and we were in complete shock, got in the house and Tanya was laying on the living room floor with the police and ambulance there because it was a sudden death.
Tanya’s mother Natasha said they were ‘best friends’ (Picture: Family handout)
‘They just kept saying “sorry, there was nothing we could do”.
‘It was a complete shock. I just grabbed Marcus and held onto him because I was in absolute bits.
‘It was like a dream, it wasn’t happening to me. I was dreaming it and any moment I was going to wake up and she’d be fine.’
Chesterfield Royal Hospital NHS Foundation Trust has apologised for Tanya’s death.
While the trust initially said discharging her had been appropriate, Natasha and Martin pushed for more answers.
The trust later admitted liability and said following a further investigation, that it recognised Tanya ‘would have, in all probability, made a recovery’ if she had been admitted to hospital to receive antibiotics intravenously.
But, Natasha said: ‘Looking at the apology letter, the only way I can describe it is it’s something they’d send out to everybody.
‘Yes, we got a letter of apology from the trust but I don’t think it’s worth the paper it’s written on.’
Since Tanya passed away, Natasha has raised Marcus herself. He is now three-and-a-half years old.
She told Metro: ‘We go to Tanya’s graveside and he knows that’s his mummy Tanya – and we’ll say “where is she?” and he’ll point to the sky and say “heaven”.
‘We have a bench outside in the garden with a plaque [bearing Tanya’s name] and it’s like “let’s go sit on mummy’s bench” and we’ll tell her about our day.
‘And there are photos of her that he does look at but he doesn’t recognise her, he doesn’t remember her – but we try every day to speak about her.’
Natasha added that she sees a lot of Tanya in Marcus, especially ‘with some of the looks he gives me’.
The NHS trust apologised for Tanya’s death, saying ‘the care she received was not the standard that we strive for’ (Picture: Family handout)
‘Normally when I’m telling him off he has this sort of sideways glance and I’m thinking “yep, that’s definitely your mother”. He’s just a normal happy boy.
‘He’s my world. Obviously if I could change things I would – but having him with me, if it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t be here.
‘He keeps me going, he keeps me young. He’s very outgoing, he’s so friendly to everybody and so energetic.’
Urging others who are discharged from hospital despite still feeling poorly to get a second opinion, Natasha said people should ‘question when they’re being discharged “is it safe to do so?”, especially when they’re still feeling very, very ill’.
‘I want them to ask for a second opinion. If I can save one more person it’ll be a blessing.
‘I don’t want anybody to go through what I’m going through.’
Tanya’s family are being represented by clinical negligence solicitor Rebecca Dowse at the law firm Slater and Gordon.
She said: ‘Tanya’s death was utterly avoidable and that is a devastating reality for her family to live with.
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‘But as if the loss of a precious mother, sister, daughter and granddaughter was not enough, her family have had to fight to get the answers they need and deserve around Tanya’s death – and that is absolutely unacceptable.’
Kevin Sargen, medical director at Chesterfield Royal Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, said: ‘We send our sincere condolences to Ms McCartney’s family and loved ones.
‘We acknowledge that the care she received was not the standard that we strive for.
‘Given the reopening of the inquest, it would be inappropriate for us to comment further, but we are continuing to work with HM Coroner to support their ongoing investigations into Ms McCartney’s death.’
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