ORLANDO, Fla. – A Central Florida couple is out with a warning.
They’re in legal battle with a local hospital and medical professionals, claiming they failed to react in a timely fashion to a test result that showed their newborn daughter had a rare liver disease.
The couple says that delay has led to a lifetime of complications for their daughter, Mattie Beacham, who turns 3 years old on Dec. 13.
Making matters worse, they say, Florida lawmakers have created a system that makes it nearly impossible to get justice.
Little Mattie appears to be a typical, happy-go-lucky toddler, full of giggles and energy, but life for her has been anything but typical.
Her parents, Michael and Allison Beacham, say it all began shortly after her birth at Winnie Palmer Hospital in Orlando.
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In a lawsuit filed against Pediatrix Medical Group of Florida, which provides medical professionals to the hospital, they claim a doctor and an advanced practice registered nurse (APRN) failed to respond to an abnormal blood test that showed elevated bilirubin levels
“This thing should have been flagged, and had it been flagged, we wouldn’t be speaking with you today,” said Allison Beacham.
By her two-month check-up, they say Mattie was showing several signs of failure to thrive, including not gaining weight and appearing jaundiced. They say the pediatrician that day immediately sent them to the emergency room.
“As parents, it felt like we were held captive at that moment, where when they say that your daughter doesn’t have time for you to go get a second opinion, when, of course, we’d fly anywhere to get that opinion, but they said, every hour that goes by, she’s being poisoned,” said Allison Beacham.
The Beachams say the surgery that was performed, a Kasai procedure, failed.
“So, the surgery failed, and within two weeks, we were back in the hospital again, and that started a spiral of Mattie’s health to where she eventually ended up in a coma,” said Michael Beacham.
That spiral also prompted a life-saving liver transplant when Mattie was just 9 months old. Her parents say Mattie was eventually moved to another hospital with AdventHealth, but the whole ordeal, they say, has led to lifelong complications.
“She lost her hand. That was preventable. That should have never happened if this surgery was done in time,” said Michael Beacham. “She has a 50% chance of getting melanoma. She will have the same propensities of getting all other cancers as a 65-year-old when she’s eight years old because she was early immunosuppressed and had to have this transplant unnecessarily at such a young age.”
They’re now fighting for change on two fronts: going to Tallahassee and Washington D.C. to advocate for universal direct bilirubin tests for all newborns.
“It’s a time bomb disease. If you catch it at birth and you fix it before 30 days, there’s a 68% chance they won’t need a liver transplant, and if they do, it’ll be when they’re 10 or 11 or 12,” said Michael Beacham.
Their other goal: eliminating medical malpractice caps for catastrophic injuries like Mattie’s.
“If a hospital or a doctor makes a catastrophic mistake, then all they have to do is say, ‘Yeah, we’re liable, we were negligent,’ and a cap is put into place,” said Michael Beacham.
In total, the Beachams say they spent 182 nights in the hospital.
While the Beachams are suing Pediatrix Medical Group of Florida, they’re also in arbitration with Orlando Health. We reached out to both groups, and they replied saying they do not comment on pending litigation.