Parents' anger over death of son who caught virus from next cot

The parents of a baby who died after contracting a virus from the child in the next hospital cot today blamed doctors for failing to save their son.

Speaking after a coroner recorded a natural causes verdict on five-month-old Noe Tomsett, his mother Nicole Deutsch accused doctors of not acting quickly enough to protect him.

Noe was born by emergency Caesarean in September 2009 after a scan revealed he was suffering from exomphalos - a condition where the organs are in a membrane sack outside the body. He was kept in hospital for nearly a month after his birth.

But by January last year Noe was "failing to thrive" and was taken to St George's Hospital in Tooting.

He was diagnosed with a hole in the heart and bronchiomilacia and discharged but five days later he returned to the hospital with a respiratory virus. The baby in the bed next to him had an adenovirus and on March 21, Noe died after contracting it.

After the Westminster inquest today, Ms Deutsch said: "Everything took so long. They didn't do a full check when he was born so didn't find the other problems until January. They didn't do tests quick enough. No one had the answers. I stayed in the hospital all the time with him during the week."

Her partner Brett Tomsett, Noe's father, added: "Not one consultant took responsibility for Noe's case. We had to tell doctors Noe's story every two days.

"I expected the natural causes verdict. It's a virus you can catch anytime. It's not clinical negligence in a sense." The hospital was not able to comment on the case.