A DEVASTATED Irish family say their baby son might still be alive today had they received the results of a brain scan sooner.
A consultant admitted there were 'unacceptable delays' in informing the parents of the sick toddler about hospital test results after they received a letter from a health trust on the day of his funeral.
Cameron Tindale, from Lurgan in Co. Armagh, was just 15-months-old when his mother found him face down in his cot and not breathing on May 4 last year.
Following an inquest into his death this week, the boy's grandfather, Ulster Unionist MLA Doug Beattie, said he believed an "opportunity had been lost" due to the seven weeks it took for the Southern health trust to inform the family that abnormalities had been detected.
Apologies were offered by paediatric consultant, Dr Samuel Thompson, at Belfast coroner's court for both the administrative delay and timing of the letter, which he said was 'dreadful', the Irish News reports.
He added that systems had been overhauled at the trust so that childrens' test results are delivered much more quickly by telephone or in writing.
The court heard there was strong family history of epilepsy in Cameron's family and that he was admitted to Craigavon Area hospital last March after he suffered a convulsion lasting almost an hour.
Prior to the fit, he had been a "happy, healthy child".
Doctors carried out an EEG test, which measures brain wave activity, after he he had a further two febrile seizures during his stay in hospital.
During the hearing on October 3, the toddler's mother, Leigh Tindale, 28, wept and and held her husband's hand as she gave evidence on the final hours of her youngest child's life.
"The night before he died he had been jumping around in his cot and playing with his older brother who he shared a room with...he was a fit, healthy boy.
"Due to the family history I would have checked his temperature about four times a day and he was fine. I put him to bed at 7pm and checked on him.
"When I went in early the next morning he was lying on his front and freezing cold, there were blue and purple patches on his face. I thought he had meningitis.
"I rang for an ambulance and gave him mouth-to-mouth, but he couldn't be helped."
Mrs Tindale, who suffers from epilepsy herself, said if she had received the test results sooner she would have sought a private medical opinion.
The letter she received from Dr Thompson on the morning she buried her son recommended that a second EEG should be performed and that Cameron was at a higher risk of suffering further seizures.
"Both of my other two sons nearly died with seizures...if I had received the letter sooner I would have acted and would have wanted to put him on medication..
"Two weeks after he died his older brother had a seizure and he was hospitalised and put on medication. Cameron wasn't given anything."
Consultant paediatrician Dr Sylvia Perrot, who treated the little boy in hospital last March, said that she wouldn't have done anything differently in relation to his care.
"Febrile seizures are very common in children between the ages of six months and five years and most are short-lived. We kept Cameron in overnight because of a spike in temperature.
"No-one would have started Cameron on anti-epileptic medication."
Dr Thompson revealed it took two weeks following Cameron's test for the results to fed into a computer - even though they were known within 24 hours.
It took several more weeks for the letter to dictated and sent out, a delay which Coroner Paddy McGurgan said he 'struggled with'.
The consultant added: "This reflects different administrative delays there are in getting a result processed. This was an unacceptable delay in terms of getting information relayed to parents.
I can only apologise again for the timing of this letter. I learned the next day Cameron had passed away."
A post-mortem concluded that the cause of death was Sudden Adult Death in Infancy (SADI).
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