Severely Compromised

Kahn

Monday, 15 September 2003

The midwife had a trail of destruction behind her and had I known this, I wouldn’t be in this situation today.

My son Kahn was born with severe brain damage due to birth asphyxia on 15th September 2003. He was not expected to live but he is now seven years old, and every day we deal with the aftermath of Paulette’s decisions. To tell the full story of Kahn’s birth would take a novel, but regardless of her actions that night, and other births she had ‘mis’handled before and after Kahn, she was still not struck off. She finally stopped practicing of her own accord after refusing retraining.

Kahn has around 200 seizures a day, he is tube fed, he has numerous chest infections, he requires suctioning to keep his airways clear (despite having had his saliva glands surgically removed). Kahn’s health is now such that we can’t travel anywhere. We’re now housebound and try to treasure every day we have left.

When Kahn was younger we showed his story to the public in an effort to raise awareness of the failings of our maternity system, however living the day to day struggle since this has been even more trying than I could have imagined.

For the past seven years I have had the sole care of one of the country’s most severely damaged children, something that has taken its toll on me mentally, physically and emotionally.

Every time I hear of another child hurt or lost in the same way my heart breaks. Right now, our system counts live births and stillborns, but still, children like my Kahn do not count – anywhere. I want children like mine to count for something, and I want to see the tragedies in the future avoided.

Suzi

You can read some of Kahn’s story here:

http://tvnz.co.nz/content/693612/425826.xhtml

Or you can watch it here:

http://youtu.be/Uf0n6qxx7tQ