Get the stories that matter to you sent straight to your inbox with our daily newsletter. Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

A schoolgirl died after a year in agony after doctors failed to diagnose the same cancer which killed her dad.

By the time they did, it was too late to save her.

Alana Finlayson, 15, told her mum Linda Jones before she died: “Please tell my story so this can never happen to anyone else.”

Linda, 51, yesterday told her little girl’s harrowing story and criticised doctors at Glasgow’s Royal Hospital for Children.

Linda said: “She was in their care for a year and they let her down. It ripped my heart out.

“We were dismissed time and time again.

“Some of the doctors were so arrogant. If they had just listened to what we were saying, I may still have had Alana with me but they left a wee lassie in excruciating pain and with no treatment.”

(Image: Daily Record)

When Alana was finally ­diagnosed, the ­youngster had just eight weeks to say goodbye to her family and friends before ­glioblastoma – which had robbed her of dad Paul Finlayson just 19 months before – killed her.

The pain she complained about was at first dismissed as growing pains, attention seeking and grief. Medics even told her she did not have the same illness as her dad.

Just three weeks after Paul’s death on October 11, 2017, Alana’s family noticed changes in her behaviour but dismissed them as grief.

Linda, of Toryglen, Glasgow, said: “I don’t know if I missed symptoms in Alana because I was so wrapped up in Paul’s illness but I don’t think so.

“However, three weeks after Paul died Alana’s behaviour started to change.

“I thought it was the grief because she was a good girl. But she started having mood swings and hated everybody.”

She had also been complaining about pains in her legs but her GP dismissed them as growing pains. But in February 2018, Linda got a call from Alana’s school, Kings Park Secondary, to say she had pain in her hip. Linda took her to A & E but the X-rays didn’t show anything.

Linda said: “Cancerous tumours don’t show up on X-rays. Alana was greetin’ all night. I took her back up the next day.”

This time, a doctor suggested her jeans were too tight and asked Alana if she felt safe at home.

Linda said: “I came home in absolute pieces.”

A second opinion doctor told Linda Alana’s pain was real but that there was no reason for it. Linda said: “Alana was begging them for help. She was offered a grief counsellor.

(Image: Daily Record)

“All they heard was she has just lost her daddy. By March she was losing weight and couldn’t see properly. She had head pain, neck pain and severe nausea. She had gone from a size 10 to a size six in a month.

“I was banging my head off a brick wall. Eventually, I took her to the opticians and they ­discovered she had inflammation around her optic nerves.”

They sent her to hospital and she had a CT scan, an MRI scan and a lumbar puncture that revealed she had idiopathic intracranial ­hypertension – brain pressure without a detectable cause. It can, however, be caused by a brain tumour.

A shunt was put in her head to relieve the pressure but it would build up, causing extreme leg pain. Each time, it was only after Linda’s insistence that Alana was given a lumbar puncture to remove fluid.

The shunt was moved from one side of Alana’s head to another but pressure still built up. Brain scans showed lesions in her white and grey matter and she had a biopsy on her brain. It was inconclusive but it wasn’t repeated.

In November, Linda asked if Alana had cancer but was told: “No, definitely not.”

Linda said: “By this time, they had called in rheumatology and neurosurgery. They didn’t know what was causing it but told her, ‘This is nothing like what your dad had’. She was so relieved.”

(Image: Daily Record)

In February 2019, Alana’s severe leg pain returned and doctors decided to move the shunt from her head to her spine.

Before they could do so, they took an MRI scan and found she was riddled with cancer – a year after she first attended hospital.

Linda said: “She had a spinal tumour. Most of her vertebrae were black holes.

“The tumour was wrapped round her nerves and there were other tumours, including one in her hip bone – the original source of her pain a year before. If they had done an MRI at the start, they could have saved her.

“She had tumours in her skull, the brain lesions were the same cancer her dad had but, even with her dad’s history, they never consulted oncology.”

She underwent an operation but they were unable to remove all the spinal tumour.

On March 7, the biopsy results confirmed it was glioblastoma.

(Image: Copyright Mark Anderson)

Linda said: “Alana sat with her head in her hands repeating over and over, ‘I am going to die, I am going to die. I am dying and there is nothing they can do’.”

The family knew Alana would not live to see her 16th birthday in August so they held a party for her in April, a month before she died.

Her last days were in the Prince and Princess of Wales Hospice in Glasgow. Linda was with her at the end telling her, “You are locked in my heart forever”.

Lib Dem health spokesman Alex Cole-Hamilton said: “This is every family’s worst ­nightmare, that a very young girl with her life ahead of her, who knew ­something was wrong, was failed at every stage.

“Our clinicians work ­incredibly hard to keep people safe but no one is infallible. I would hope the Health ­Secretary would ask for a full inquiry into this death so no other family will suffer this way.”

Anas Sarwar, Labour MSP for Glasgow, said: “There was a ­catalogue of missed ­opportunities to save Alana, which must be investigated so lessons can be learned.”

Labour’s health ­spokeswoman Monica Lennon added: “An ­investigation must get under way to provide answers and ensure this can never happen again.”

Conservative shadow health spokesman Miles Briggs said: “There should be a case review and an ­explanation of what they are going to do to prevent this in future.”

A Greater Glasgow and Clyde Health Board spokesman said: “This was a tragic and highly unusual ­situation.

Despite being extensively reviewed by a team of UK-wide multi­disciplinary experts, due to the rarity of the condition, specialists were unable to diagnose Alana’s ­glioblastoma until 2019.

“We would be very keen to meet with Alana’s family to answer any questions they might have regarding this case and can confirm someone will be in touch.”