Single mother from Newport ‘just wants answers’ after her 16-year-old daughter was left partially blind and numb due to complications in her brain.

Kiera Passey was a 'normal teenager' growing up in Rogerstone when 'all of a sudden' she started to experience constant, severe and debilitating headaches.

Knowing that something was wrong, her Mother Jodie Passey took Kiera to the Grange University Hospital Wales where they discovered she had a large arachnoid cyst on her brain.

These cysts are essentially a noncancerous fluid-filled sac that can grow on the brain or spinal cord.

“I took Kiera to the Grange and they did a CT scan which showed she had a large cyst on her brain, which explained the headaches,” said Jodie Passey.

“They said that they could not do any more at this stage, not even for the pain, and then referred her to a neurologist and sent us on our way.

"However, Kiera took a turn for the worst in the days after we had got home from hospital. She was wobbly on her feet and started to lose vision, having ‘blackouts’ for 20 seconds at a time.

“Each day I would take her back to the Grange in hopes to get some answers, but it felt like nobody wanted to help me.

In an act of desperation, Jodie took her daughter Kiera to the ophthalmology ward at the Royal Gwent Hospital, where she ‘broke down’ to reception staff, ‘begging someone to see Kiera.’

It was at the Gwent where they discovered that the pressure inside Kiera’s brain was over four times the average.

“Doctors and nurses at the Grange made me feel like I was being hysterical, or like I was overreacting, when in reality my daughter had four large cysts on her brain, and a brain pressure four times the average person’s,” said Jodie.

"Staff at the Grange were fobbing me off completely, they made me think I was going crazy.

“Nurses at the Gwent said to me they had never seen a pressure that high before.”

Staff at the Royal Gwent Hospital were unable to control the pressure, and so Kiera was taken by ambulance to the Heath Hospital in Cardiff.

Here she had open brain surgery to insert two devices into her brain.

The first was the insertion of an intracranial pressure (ICP) bolt. This involved drilling a hole into the skull, inserting a bolt, and passing a wire under the brain tissue to monitor intracranial pressure

Second was a ventriculoperitoneal (VP) shunt, which is a device that treats hydrocephalus, a condition that occurs when there is too much cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) in the brain and spinal cord.

(Image: Jodie Passey)

The surgeries were successful, and Kiera gained back most of her sight, but a few months later she started to feel numbness in her fingers, feet, face and her head.

A year after first taking Kiera to the hospital, and ‘months of begging for answers,’ a CT scan at the Grange showed that Kiera now had not one but three large cysts on her brain.

“She needs an MRI scan on her brain and spine, and a doctor to reset her shunt which has moved, but the neurologists will not schedule her for one and are not giving us a reason why.

“With no answers from the NHS, I am desperate to go privately to pay for the scan but I am in no position to be able to afford it.

“I would sell everything I own in the hope to make all this go away for her, but all I have to my name is my car and if I sell that then I won’t be able to get her to appointments.”

Jodie has set up a GoFundMe page to raise money for Kiera’s medical bills, as Kiera can self-refer in a months’ time when she turns 18.

“I do not know what would have to have happened for them to have taken me seriously at the Grange. It’s a worry,” said Jodie.

“Maybe this way we can get some answers.”

A spokesman for Aneurin Bevan University Health Board said: “We’re sorry to hear that Kiera's family are unhappy with aspects of the care that she has received.

“We would like to reassure them that multiple specialist clinicians, across different Health Boards, have been involved in Kiera’s care and are committed to continuing to help Kiera and her family.

"Her care to date has been reviewed and we are satisfied that all appropriate actions have been taken.

“We are aware that when multiple teams are involved in a patient’s care, questions can arise. We have therefore reached out to Kiera’s family to try and answer any questions they may have."