Take aspirin, PEH tells broken leg boy

A 10-YEAR-OLD boy was sent home from hospital with a broken leg after he was told it would be fine by the next morning. After a check-up at the Princess Elizabeth's A&E department that evening, his worried mum, Sam, was told that he should just take mild painkillers.

But Caine Blundell was awake all night in agony after damaging his right leg during a game of football in a friend's garden.

The next day she went to her GP who was surprised that the schoolboy had not even had an X-ray.

The mum of four, from Le Vauquiedor, St Andrew's, fears that had she not persisted, her son could have been left crippled.

'We finally got a fast-track X-ray two days later and I was shocked when they told me it was broken,' said the 28-year-old.

'How could they have missed it the first time round? 'He was in terrible pain and the hospital told me when he first did it that they don't like X-raying children because of the radiation.

'But it makes me wonder if they didn't because it costs them a lot of money to bring in a radiologist out of hours.

'If I sent my son to school the next day, not knowing the leg was broken, goodness knows what he could have done to it.

' The young Rangers AC defender is today hobbling around on crutches after a cast was put on his leg, which was chipped in two places.

Now his mum, along with dad Terry, are speaking out to raise awareness about what happened.

And they say they are relieved they have private health insurance.

'I have four kids and we pay a lot for medical insurance,' said Mrs Blundell.

'But you cannot put a price on your child's health and we are thankful that he is back to his old self and is on the mend.

' The St Andrew's School pupil is expected to be on crutches for the next two weeks.

He said his friends had been really supportive.

'I am sad that I will not be able to play football for a while but my friends have been helping me a lot.

'It is hard to walk across the classroom but they get my books for me from my tray.

'My mum says I am accident-prone, but I just love football.

' In a statement, Health and Social Services confirmed that doctors 'try not to perform unnecessary X-rays on children'.

It said that this was a legal duty and complied with UK radiation guidelines on health risks.

'Every request for an X-ray must be justified and necessary.

This is a clinical decision and would be made by the appropriate clinician.

' When asked about not calling an out-of-hours radiographer on this occasion, it stated that the department was 'unable' to comment on individual cases.

The statement also said that the radiology unit runs a 24-hour on-call service for both general radiography and CT.

Staff do receive an on-call payment but this is a standard civil service agreement for any staff taking part in on-call and out-of-hours services.