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Dental phobia: doctors blamed after 8-year-old's death
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-02-16 23:45

TRURO, England -- Doctors' failure to organise adequate post-hospital care for an eight-year-old girl with an extreme phobia of dentists led her to starve herself to death, an inquest in Cornwall heard on Monday.

A dentist carries out a check-up on a patient. Doctors' failure to organise adequate post-hospital care for an eight-year-old girl with an extreme phobia of dentists led her to starve herself to death. [Agencies]

Sophie Waller died on December 2, 2005 after refusing to eat for two weeks following an operation to remove all of her milk teeth.

Following the operation, Waller was sent home to be looked after by a general practitioner (GP) and a community phsycologist, but was not seen by a medical professional, the inquest in Truro was told.

Consultant child psychiatrist, Dr Arnon Bentovin, told the inquest that Waller's medical notes had been sent to the wrong GP and that no direct contact was made between the hospital and a GP.

"There was a failure to ensure that her ongoing medical care was fully managed and planned," Dr Bentovim said.

"There needed to be a joint physical and psychological follow-up; it was optimistic to believe that the initial positive response was necessarily going to mean that this child would make a reasonable recovery," he added.