{"id":766328,"date":"2026-09-10T16:34:20","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T16:34:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/766328\/"},"modified":"2026-09-10T16:34:20","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T16:34:20","slug":"west-suffolk-hospital-patient-says-treatment-left-her-with-pneumonia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/766328\/","title":{"rendered":"West Suffolk Hospital patient says treatment left her with pneumonia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n  Michaela Smith, 42, who lives near <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eadt.co.uk\/local-news\/bury-st-edmunds-news\/?ref=au\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Bury St Edmunds<\/a>, was left feeling uncared for at West Suffolk Hospital after being hospitalised with pneumonia, which she believes was triggered by an infusion of an immunosuppressant drug.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust stated that Vedolizumab &#8211; the drug in question &#8211; is a gut-specific treatment and is not generally considered to be associated with community-acquired pneumonia.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  <img   width=\"100%\" alt=\"Michaela Smith\"\/>Michaela Smith, 42, suffers from an inflammatory bowel disease (Image: Contributed)\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Ms Smith, who lives with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), coeliac disease, and other health conditions, said: &#8220;I just feel like I&#8217;m not listened to. Nobody cares.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  &#8220;I&#8217;ve put in numerous complaints.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  &#8220;I just don&#8217;t want this to happen to anyone else.&#8221;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  On July 17, 2026, doctors at West Suffolk Hospital postponed her medication due to a suspected viral infection.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  However, on August 1, despite a raised C-reactive protein (CRP) level &#8211; a blood marker that can indicate inflammation or infection &#8211; she was given the infusion.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Two days later, Ms Smith became seriously unwell and was later diagnosed with pneumonia, which she believes was linked to the infusion.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  She said: &#8220;I believe that if my immune infusion wasn&#8217;t given to me, this would not have landed me in the hospital as ill as I am.&#8221;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  <img   width=\"100%\" alt=\"Michaela Smith\"\/>Ms Smith was left with pneumonia which she links to the treatment she was given (Image: Contributed)\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Ms Smith was hospitalised for six days and said she continues to experience breathlessness, fatigue, and mobility issues.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  She also claims her long-standing requests for surgery instead of medication have been denied.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  A spokesman for West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust said: &#8220;We thank Ms Smith for raising concerns directly with our patient advice and liaison service (PALS).\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  &#8220;We have investigated these and shared our initial response with her.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  &#8220;She remains under our care and her team are carefully monitoring and reviewing her individual circumstances to support her ongoing treatment and care plan.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michaela Smith, 42, who lives near Bury St Edmunds, was left feeling uncared for at West Suffolk Hospital&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":766329,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[102,2960,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-766328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=766328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766328\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/766329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=766328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=766328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=766328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}