Five years after being wrongly accused of abusing her baby son by staff at Starship Children's Hospital, Auckland mother Mary* says she still has nightmares about it.

For five days in 2006, Mary and her husband were treated as guilty until proven innocent, by a team of medical staff, of abusing John*, who was almost six months old.

Last week's investigation in the Sunday Star-Times, which showed Starship's child protection unit often treated good parents like child abusers, moved Mary to come forward and share her experience with the country.

She says there needs to be an inquiry into the hospital's protocols. Starship hospital, under the direction of Patrick Kelly, failed her family, she says.

"Nobody deserves to go through what my husband and I and our son and our families went through."

Mary says she and her husband had taken John to Starship after he had been vomiting from reflux.

An internal scan found an old rib injury, caused two months earlier when John arched his back in pain from the reflux, while in his baby seat on a table.

Mary and her husband had rushed their son to a North Shore A&E clinic, where the incident was recorded.

She told Starship staff about the earlier incident and how it was all on record. The couple were sent home but the next morning Mary received a call from a nurse from Starship, saying she needed to bring John back in.

Alarmed her son was ill, Mary said the woman refused to explain why. "The more I pushed, the more defensive she got. Eventually she said `You must bring him in, Patrick Kelly has instructed me. If you don't then there will be consequences'."

That Friday, when the couple took their son to Starship, was the start of a long weekend and they would not leave the hospital with their son until Tuesday lunchtime, despite being cleared of abuse on the Saturday.

With a guard outside the door, only one parent was allowed to stay with John as tests for abuse, which kept coming back clear, were carried out. The final and most important test, the full body scan, could not be carried out until the next day, Saturday morning.

"At that stage, I was still guilty until proven innocent. It's horrific, but I understand it.

"There are children who slip through the cracks, we had to go through the system, I understand that."

But Mary says hospital protocols let the couple down.

"I asked them if they had requested the report from the A&E [about how the old rib injury happened] and was told that Patrick Kelly didn't think it was relevant.

"It was established at this stage we were not abusers, we deserved to go home, but they said we couldn't leave until a CYFs worker released us."

Because it was a long weekend, no CYF worker was available until Tuesday morning.

"This is where my husband and I have never forgiven how it has worked out.

"It was all done so very wrong. In that instance, when the last test came back showing we were innocent of any wrongdoing, we should have been released."

Instead the couple spent another three days at the hospital.

"We weren't treated any differently, even though everyone knew we weren't abusers."

Mary says changes are needed at Starship. "Patrick Kelly is the one who is orchestrating the entire thing, and yes, he's done a lot of good, but it's how they're dealing with it once these families are in there."

* Names have been changed at the family's request.

belinda.mccammon@star-times.co.nz