Chris Baker Obituary – Christopher Baker, a Romford resident who worked in information technology, passed away in 2019 due to heart failure. After receiving a diagnosis of hereditary cardiomyopathy in 2015, he was receiving treatment at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, where he was under the care of cardiologists. Despite the fact that his medical staff acknowledged that he would benefit from being equipped with a device that prevents heart attacks.
He was never placed on the waiting list for the device because of faults in the system. “Christopher fell through the system, not once but twice, at a time when he needed it the most,” said Heidi Page, who has been his partner for sixteen years. “If you had the opportunity to meet Christopher, you would never forget him because he was so sweet, humorous, and wonderful. I will have to take care of a lot of things on my own because we had planned our future together, but now that has been taken away from me.
A representative of the trust issued the following statement: “We are deeply sorry for the care that was provided to Mr. Baker, which did not meet our consistently high standards.” This experience has taught us valuable lessons, and we have taken measures to prevent it from happening again. The year 2015 marked the year that Chris received a diagnosis of heart failure, and further genetic testing confirmed that his ailment was inherited.
According to Heidi, “At first, we thought that he was just suffering from a severe chest infection.” In the end, we went to the emergency room because he was having problems breathing. After going through a plethora of testing, he was ultimately determined to have cardiac problems. It was a surprise because he was still so little. A referral was made to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital with the intention of implanting an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD), which is a device that transmits electrical pulses to the heart in order to control it and prevent people from going into cardiac arrest.
The month of April 2019 was scheduled for him to go to the hospital for a heart test; however, he felt ill just a few days before the appointment and informed the staff that he would not be able to go. Despite the fact that the trust recorded the appointment that was canceled, no action was done to make arrangements for a new appointment, and his consultant was not contacted. In the third month after that, his primary care physician submitted a letter to the trust about another concern.
It was at that time that his team at the hospital realized that he had not gone to the hospital for the heart test. In August, a fresh appointment was scheduled, and after that, it was decided that he would be better off with an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD). Christopher, on the other hand, was never officially added to the waiting list, and his primary care physician notified him that a decision had been made to proceed with the heart treatment.
We discussed it after his appointment and agreed that it would be a brilliant thing to have the device; we trusted the hospital and we thought that with some slight adjustments to our way of life, we would still be able to have a good life together,” Heidi said. In fact, we even made jokes about the fact that he would trigger the security alarms. He was not on the waiting list, which was a complete surprise to us. However, he continued to work and take pleasure in fishing as well as spending time with our family and our close group of friends.
