Tongue stitched to gum - inquiry

Beth Parfitt said her daughter was in pain after the operation

Health officials are investigating claims that a three-year-old girl was discharged after surgery with her tongue mistakenly stitched to her gum.

Beth Parfitt, 25, said the error happened to her daughter Megan during an operation to remove milk teeth at the Prince Charles Hospital in Merthyr Tydfil, south Wales.

The North Glamorgan NHS Trust said initial findings showed it was likely that a mistake occurred.

Mrs Parfitt, from Ynysboeth, said she became worried when her daughter kept crying and refused to eat for days after the operation.

When she and her husband Nicky looked into Megan's mouth, she said they could see white stitches between the right side of her tongue and the top of her gum.

"She was in agony - the part they had stitched was towards the back of the tongue but it was pretty big," said Mrs Parfitt.

We couldn't get her to eat and she lost four pounds in weight

Beth Parfitt, mother

Megan, who has dental hypoplasia - a condition which prevents her teeth from developing enamel - was said to be highly distressed after the operation in April.

"She wasn't talking, she was crying about her tongue," said Mrs Parfitt.

"All she could say was 'my tongue, my tongue'.

"She normally chats so much, but she wasn't talking at all.

"We couldn't get her to eat and she lost four pounds in weight."

Human error

Mrs Parfitt said the stitches were removed by an apologetic doctor when she took Megan back to hospital.

The poor child and the parents went through a lot of distress and obviously we're very upset about that

Phil Williams, North Glamorgan NHS Trust

Phil Williams, director of corporate services at the trust said the hospital was "very upset" about the distress caused but he could not confirm Megan's tongue had been stitched to her gum.

"The preliminary report is that we have gone wrong and obviously if that's the case we will be apologising and doing what we can to put things right," he said.

He added it seemed to be a case of human error rather than a procedural error.

"The poor child and the parents went through a lot of distress and obviously we're very upset about that.

"We're very sympathetic to the family."

Mr Williams added that around 300 children had tooth extraction operations at the hospital each year, but nothing like this had ever happened before.

He said the trust's thorough investigation would take around two weeks but disciplinary proceedings were highly unlikely as it was an isolated incident.