'She should still be here with me': Heartbroken mum's pain as daughter dies after being 'drastically let down'

A teenage girl with a rare form of leukaemia died after being 'drastically let down' by health professionals, her grieving mum says. Katie Wilkins had a 'bright future ahead of her' and dreamed of becoming a paramedic.

But the Warrington teenager sadly died aged just 14 on July 31, 2020, at Alder Hey children's hospital following a cancer battle, the Liverpool Echo reports. At an inquest into her death this morning (May 23), heartbroken mum Jeanette Whitfield told the coroner: "She should still be here with me."

Speaking at Liverpool Gerard Majella Courthouse, she added: "I lost a part of my heart that day, my best friend and her sister's best friend. You put your trust and everything in the experts so you don't expect to learn how drastically she was let down."

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The hearing heard how Katie, of Runcorn Road, began to complain of vaginal pains following a trip to London to see her sister after lockdown restrictions. After a trip to her GP showed clear water tests, her mum took the decision to take her to A&E in Warrington on June 30.

Ms Whitfield said scans by doctors showed a large abscess, which was 'quite unusual' for her age, and she was given a course of antibiotics with a follow up appointment. The hearing heard how Katie was in 'waves of pain' but the next week she was given another course of antibiotics as the 'swelling hadn't gone down'.

However, after raising concerns about her daughter's health, Katie was given a bed on Warrington's paediatric ward on July 14 with the possibility of surgery to drain the abscess. But instead, she was taken for an MRI due to concerns about another lesion and discharged