AN eight-year-old girl was left in agony for a week when she was discharged from Stoke Mandeville Hospital instead of having an emergency operation.
Samantha Carroll, who lives with her mum Tracey in Green Road, Terriers, took a tumble down the stairs and broke her arm on February 16.
Her worried mum rushed her to Wycombe Hospital where she was seen quickly because she was an "urgent case."
Samantha was plastered up and immediately transferred to Stoke Mandeville because the break was so bad it needed an operation. But instead of having an operation, she was sent home.
Mrs Carroll said: "It was a total nightmare. She was supposed to be admitted that day to have the operation.
"But they did not do what they were supposed to. The doctor on call took an x-ray and sent her home."
Samantha had to return to Stoke Mandeville a week later after her consultant at Wycombe Hospital took an X-ray through the cast and saw her arm was not healing and had become deformed.
Her mum said: "She was left in pain for a week. It is disgusting they would leave an eight-year-old child in agony with no pain relief."
The mother and daughter also had troubles getting over to Aylesbury. Mrs Carroll ended up driving her daughter there because of a mis-communication.
"We were supposed to be transported by ambulance, but they did not tell us," she said.
Mrs Carroll is also annoyed her daughter had to wait three hours to be seen at the hospital with no support for her injured arm.
She said: "From 3.10pm, when we arrived, until 5.30pm she was sat in the waiting room holding her own arm."
Jon Fisher, communications manager at Buckinghamshire Hospitals NHS Trust, said: "The patient was assessed on arrival at Wycombe Hospital. She was then transferred to Stoke Mandeville as a precaution in case the patient required surgery at that time.
"At SMH, the patient was judged not to require surgery and a cast was fitted around the injured limb. Younger patients with straightforward bone fractures will often have the limb placed in a cast to render it immobile, and the bones will knit together of their own accord. This is the case with this patient.
"It appears that the bone did not knit together properly, as had been anticipated by medical staff, and the patient was deemed to require a surgical procedure, at Stoke Mandeville, to pin the fracture securely to allow the bone to knit in the correct way.
"We sympathise with the mother's concern, but we are confident that all medical intervention carried out by the Trust was appropriate.
"We are happy for the patient's mother to contact us in order to discuss her daughter's treatment at greater length."
