The boy with a racing heart - Part 2

We left John’s son’s story at a very delicate point. A father and son racing to hospital in the back of an ambulance. His son having just suffered a very serious cardiac episode in school, worrisome enough, that paramedics were on the verge of utilizing a defibrillator in an attempt to stabilise the young boy’s heart. If you have just jumped into this story I would advise reading Part 1 of this interview series before continuing.

Click here to read “ The boy with a racing heart - Part 1 “

GON: How much additional time, do you think, it would have taken for the ambulance to have gone to Crumlin Children’s Hospital where there are pediatric cardiologists as opposed to going to the hospital that you and your son went to?

John: Well we were on the M1 already heading south - so at that time of the day ( non-peak) 30-35 minutes at most.

GON: Ok, so not far at all. So, just to confirm something. Were you riding in the back of the ambulance or driving behind?

John: I was in the ambulance with my son. It must be a protocol for children as I asked about driving my car to follow directly behind so as not to be stranded at the hospital but I left it at the school.

GON: OK. Was there anything noteworthy about the journey or what were your feelings. Was your son still asleep?

John: He woke up after awhile and I was having a video call with my wife. So I let him talk to her for a few moments and to sort of calm her down about the situation too.

GON: What was the reaction of the paramedics during this journey. Was there much chat?

John: Like he was very calm and professional about the whole thing. Explaining how critical is was - If they hadn’t been able to recover him - they would have been going with blue lights and sirens.

GON: I think you said earlier the Valsalva procedure seems to have stabilized the situation?

John: Yes, but if that hadn’t worked the defibrillator was the next option. They had already rang ahead and had the resuscitation team warned and ready we were on our way.

GON: I suppose I have been thinking about this part of your story since our first conversation and to my mind it seems like a very professional response but at the same time it’s a massive systems error or blind spot. All good people and good responses on the scene yet the paramedics and the resuscitation teams both know that there is no pediatric cardiologist in the hospital you are going to?

John: Yeah, I know - but I wonder what the scenario would have been if he hadn’t been recovered at the scene would there have been a different protocol in place and maybe we would have gone to Crumlin?

GON: That’s a good point and we don’t know the answer but I suppose from my point of view the paramedics have done an emergency recovery and have no way of knowing whether the episode will re-trigger within an 1 hour, a day or a week. So, the determination would be that this child needs to go to a hospital and see a cardiologist very, very quickly.

John: The other point I should make and maybe we’ll get to is that I have Private Health Insurance.

GON: Before we get to that let’s get into the nitty gritty of what happened on arrival to the hospital and entry into the system.

John: When we arrive the resuscitation team come out and the paramedics explain to them what they did with the Valsalva procedure and they say well done on that. We continue then with a trolley to the pediatrics A&E and they hooked him up to a monitor. They advised me that he would be admitted to a bed but because it was now after 3:00pm he wouldn’t see the cardiologist until the next day.

GON: So they did say you would see a cardiologist. Who said that to you?

John: Yes, staff in the A&E department.

GON: OK, specifically who - a doctor or a nurse? - Can you remember?

John: To be honest, I am not sure whether it was a doctor or a nurse - they all seem to wear the same scrub uniforms these days but it was member of the A&E staff definitely.

GON: And 100% said you would a cardiologist the following day?

John: Yes they did.

GON: That must be shocking for you to hear, that it would be the following day?

John: Well, Yes. Everything up to that point was dealt with like it was an emergency from paramedics to the resuscitation team on arrival. Then when we went into A&E everything slowed down. But what can I do in that scenario?

GON: There is nothing you can do. I am not questioning your actions I just want to get an idea of what you felt and capture the details?

John: My despair didn’t kick in fully until the following day. It was only then that I was told that they didn’t in fact have a cardiologist for my son in the hospital?

GON: And to be specific and to step back a little. Your mindset on hearing the news that it would be the following day before your son was seen by a cardiologist was:

“ Right we just need to get through tonight until we see the cardiologist?”

And to agree to accept the situation and grin and bear it till the morning.

John: Yeah, Yes.

GON: OK now lets step through the first night?

John: Well, when we got a bed on the ward my son fell asleep. I did ask for a more private room as I have the insurance. But they said first of all they didn’t have one and secondly, at any rate, they wanted him close to the nurses station to keep an eye on him. If he was in a private room he wouldn’t be as easy to see.

GON: Hmmmm. I think they should’ve just quit at part one of that answer. So much for private insurance.

John: There was a poor child in agony on the ward, I felt so sorry for him, he was intubated or something it was agonizing for the poor fella. It was just a very a stressful and upsetting night for everyone on the ward and their families.

GON: Did your son have any issues during that night or the subsequent one?

John: Well that’s the thing. He was hooked up to a heart monitor and the alarm was set to 60. The alarm went off a number of times during the night.

GON: Now, just to be clear the alarm is set at 60 as a low threshold warning to give notice to staff. It’s not necessarily a sign of danger but something to keep an eye. And just to be accurate your son’s heart rate was at 227 during the morning’s incident. So actually his heart rate was at nearly 4 times the low threshold of earlier in the day.

John: Well, actually it got up to a high of 258 or something.

GON: So, now you are in a different situation and we went through all the SVT stuff in Part 1?

John: This worry was to do with Bradycardia - it’s another one of the known side effects from these vaccines.

GON: Now, we should clarify was this mentioned to you in the hospital or recorded on a report similar to where they identified SVT as possible cause at the scene or is this something you researched yourself?

John: No, I looked this up myself but everything I was seeing I sent to my wife. When she got everything I sent her, regarding his lower heart rate, she forwarded it to her friend who is a cardiologist. The lower heart-rate even if Bradycardia was not as worrisome. But that the earlier ECG is something to be really, really worried about.

GON: My line of questioning here is more to do with the system. So, the first time the alarm goes off - what happens?

John: They just come in and reset. Turn-off and turn on kind of thing.

GON: Did they record the low rate on a chart ?

John: So, they did record some of the low numbers but the real lows, a few times the heart rate dipped into the 40s and it wasn’t recorded on my son’s chart. When I raised the issue with the nurse on duty she said she would raise my concerns about the heart-rate with the on-call doctor.

GON: At this time did you get the sense that they weren’t accurately recording the heart-rate on his chart?

John: No, I didn’t know that until later but I was worried enough at that stage that I began recording it on my phone.

GON: You were astute to do that. Again, my reason for asking these questions, is to focus on the systemic nature of it. Even though, your son may not have been in danger from this lower heart-rate - my contention would be that if you treat 100 patients in a row as sloppily as this - something bad is going to happen to 4 or 5 through sheer carelessness. The fact is they haven’t recorded how low your son’s heart-beat got down to and the on-call doctor is not going to have access to the absolute most accurate information when she or he arrives.

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Let’s step off here for a few moments and digest a few things. I would like to point out that John also supplied a picture of his son’s chart and it tallies with what he is saying above. There is no heart rate in the 40s recorded on the chart. I have decided against publishing that picture for a number of reasons. The first and probably most important reason is that it identifies the name of the hospital and second there is other information on the chart system that this hospital uses that may have a legal issue around publishing. But I must stress John did provide the evidence and it was my decision not to publish it.

Another point, I want to raise at this juncture is John’s status as a holder of private medical insurance. It triggered a separate question in my mind. So, after our conversation I rang VHI to find out how they would treat a claim of someone that was vaccine-injured.

Are the COVID-19 vaccine-injured covered under existing private health insurance policies?

After talking with two different but very helpful people on the phone they couldn’t give me a definitive answer. Irish Health insurance companies seem to be treating the vaccine injury situation as if it is a problem that doesn’t exist or will never exist. They did promise to get a more senior person to respond in detail to my question but at the time of writing that has yet to happen.

However, I can’t help but get the nagging sense that no-one, hospital or health insurance, wants to treat pre-teen heart injury cases as a vaccine injury. I mentioned in Part 1 that a number of medical professionals used the words “unlikely” and “ highly unlikely” in relation to the likelihood of this being a vaccine injury. My one hour phone conversation ( 15 minutes on-hold) with VHI gave me the same feeling. This unspoken idea that vaccine injuries are almost a myth.

John’s words in response to what doctors and medical people have said to him is:

“ it’s like they are singing from a hymn sheet when I even mention it “

I got this same very sense when speaking to the VHI. Happy to talk about the effects of heart problems that are covered under their policies but when I raised the point about if the effects of a pre-teen heart condition turn out to be long-term and are indeed eventually linked back to a vaccine cause - I got a sense of nervousness and no definitive answer. Now, to be fair maybe I will in a few days.

Consider this for a moment, though, if we have a situation where the hospital system actively discourage a diagnosis of vaccine-injury, and the insurance companies offer no clarity as to whether COVID vaccine injuries are specifically covered under existing policies, then how can we ever hope to accurately record the injuries?

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GON: So, eventually, your son did see a pediatric consultant but not a pediatric cardiologist, at some point on the second day. Did he ask about vaccination status?

John: Well, I raised it with him. I told him. I said it’s within two weeks of vaccination.

GON: What was his response?

John: Unlikely, but we can never rule anything out completely.

GON: A bit like aliens. So that’s it - he just goes on with his ward rounds. I guess he’s not a cardiologist is the only thing you’d say there.

John: Yeah. Pediatric as opposed to cardiologist. In the hospital they arranged for bloods, X-ray and pee. You can see in the discharge letter that they mention Troponin an indication of a heart episode.

Note: When heart muscles become damaged, troponin is sent into the bloodstream. As heart damage increases, greater amounts of troponin are released in the blood.

Discharge Letter from the hospital

One thing I note from the letter is, my old favorite, use of language. In particular the last paragraph.

“ Off note, he has a history of COVID 19 in November and he received the Pfizer vaccine less than two weeks ago….”

To me, by mentioning the earlier November COVID sickness first and in the same breath as the vaccination - it subliminally introduces the idea that child’s very mild COVID symptoms 3 months earlier might equally, be as likely, a cause as the vaccine. Or maybe I’m just a cantankerous old cynic. Anyway on we go.

GON: So, basically after two days and nights in hospital with your son you never see a cardiologist and are given a discharge letter for use to see one in Crumlin. A hospital that the ambulance could have easily brought you to in the first place. At least theoretically. What happened in between meeting cardiologist and receiving a discharge letter.

John: Yes, it was nearly a day into this ordeal that a nurse told me that I wouldn’t be seeing a cardiologist there as they didn’t have a pediatric one. And that the adult cardiologist would not look at children because it’s a different thing. She said he would have to get an echo cardiogram done and that they could only do that in Crumlin Children’s hospital.

GON: That’s kind of incredible.

John: That’s when I started to say: Why am I here in the first place?

So, that’s when I started to get exacerbated. Now, I don’t get angry or I don’t shout. I am not that type of person. If you don’t keep a calm head you’re not going to be treated well.

GON: At the same time Your kid is your kid. You’d be within your rights to let them know you’re upset.

John: You still have to keep your manners and so I know that. I was told my son would be discharged the following day with a letter and I’d go to Crumlin.

GON: As in you’d go to Crumlin the next day?

John: No, she said she didn’t know when. She told me that they’re very busy (Crumlin). She said it could be weeks or it could be months.

GON: Months! - I mean Jesus Christ. It’s so impersonal and unapologetic.

John: Yeah, and it was the same kind of thing with the doctor. I felt she said “ months” almost to antagonize me. I just turned around and walked away. We were discharged the following day with just that letter I sent you. They gave Crumlin my details and they were supposed to contact me. They didn’t ring but actually it was the nurse from the school, who rang me for updates through-out the time we were in hospital, who made contact with Crumlin on my behalf and rang them up and got us an appointment for 10 days later.

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And that, as they say, was that for John’s son and his first real experience with the glory of the Irish health system. It draws us to a close of Part 2.

Oh, wait a second, there is one more thing……

Something I haven’t mentioned so far. Since, this episode, in late January and early February, John has made a number of attempts to make a GP appointment for his son. It has been difficult given the restrictions and guidelines in place around GP practices at the moment. He has number of questions, signed letters and other stuff around potentially getting a second opinion. He also maybe has a question. Or maybe it’s more me than him.

All health advice points to the fact the heart complaint in question, and the heart procedure being advanced to alleviate it, are not related to John’s son’s vaccination. Now, John’s son had his heart injury 2 weeks after his 1st dose of the Pfizer vaccine. The HSE keep bombarding him with text messages regarding missed appointments for the 2nd shot of the Pfizer vaccine. He received his final reminder on February 21st.

What would you do in John’s situation?

And more pertinently will a medical doctor in this country advise him in writing that he should go ahead and take the 2nd jab?

I mean he doesn’t have a vaccine injury right?

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