Who am I? 

My name is Karina Driscoll. I am Melody Driscoll's mum. Melody died at the hands of King’s Hospital. They say her death was natural. We say they killed her. Now we have to prove it at her inquest.

Melody's Story

The last year of Melody’s life was absolute torture for her, and for us as her family. We were threatened by Social Services that if we didn’t comply with Kings College Hospital - we were told that Melody would be taken away from our care and placed into foster care. 

We, her parents, were in disagreement with the hospital over Melody’s treatment. We were going by her previous medical regime created by Great Ormond Street Hospital which, although not ideal, kept Melody stable and well and, most importantly, gave her a fantastic quality of life. She could be at home with her family and we were even able to organise for her to meet her Prince Charming Mr Ed Sheeran. 

Failures in Melody's care

It took us years to work out what worked and didn’t work with Melody but Kings Hospital did not agree with this. The hospital accused us of sedating Melody with pain relief and having her on medications she did not need, despite the fact that they had the documentation from Great Ormond Street explaining why she was on these drugs.

When tried to stop the hospital removing these medications Social Services and the hospital dragged us to court on more than one occasion. We explained to them what would happen if these medications were taken away from Melody but they all refused to listen or pay attention to the documentation we provided. It became a personal vendetta against us, her parents. It wasn’t about Melody’s best interests any longer in their eyes. We were labelled as Problem Parents. This all happened when we put a complaint in against this one doctor. 

Where were our Parental Rights? Be warned - these go out the window as soon as your child goes into hospital. Parents mean nothing in some doctors' eyes. This needs to change. Our children are our children. Not the hospitals, not the governments, not Social Services, they are meant to be OURS. 

Melody's autopsy

Melody’s autopsy is now back and I can confirm that what we told King’s Hospital would happen did indeed happen. Melody died in the worse way possible. She got Pancreatitis and she internally bled to death. Her Rett Syndrome did not cause her death. In exactly the way Great Ormond Street told us we would lose her, we lost her. We had told Kings what would happen so many times.

No child should be treated this way and we believe Melody;'s death could have been avoided. She would still be here today if only the hospital would have listened and put Melody first.

Pancreatitis causes excruciating pain. They said she was not in pain but that is was a behavioural problem - but not once did they bring in a behaviour specialist, even though we requested it. Pain relief was taken away from Melody and only given back to her in the last 11 weeks and surprisingly the other drugs stopped were given back to Melody too, even though Kings had stated to Social Services and in court that Melody didn’t need these drugs. But by then, it was all too late. Too much damage had been done. Kings also perforated Melody’s bowel and gave her brain damage. Melody suffered so badly. 

Nothing can bring Melody back to us but we won’t stop until we get her the justice she deserves. Kings hospital now refuse to meet with us to discuss what happened and why. They took Melody’s last year away from her, from us parents, and from her brothers. Kings Hospital took everything from us. Our pride, our dignity, and then they took Melody. How on earth do we go on without our beautiful girl? How on earth do her brothers go on without her? All we can do now is fight for justice 💛