A Crystal Palace mum is suing Mayday Hospital for negligence after her deaf child was misdiagnosed.

Mayday Hospital in Croydon had to contact 700 families after a machine for testing babies’ hearing was calibrated incorrectly.

The trust had to contact families of babies tested as far back as 2003 to make sure none of them had been missed by the faulty equipment.

So far six children have been identified with a hearing loss that was not picked up by the first test.

Four of these were already being seen by the hearing service and 56 are awaiting a second repeat hearing test.

Michelle Salami, 46, began to doubt her own instincts when she was told her five-year-old daughter Abigail’s hearing was fine.

It was only when her daughter’s speech and language therapist insisted she get tested independently, she was finally diagnosed as profoundly deaf in October last year.

Her hearing was first tested at Mayday in November 2006 and Mrs Salami was told it was within normal parameters.

Mrs Salami said: “Her speech and language therapist said ‘I think she can’t hear’. She said we should get referred to a specialist unit at the Nuffield Centre.

“I thought ‘here we go again’. I humoured them and went along with it. I got the biggest shock of my life when I found out my daughter was deaf.”

She added: “When she first got the hearing aid fitted I took her outside to go to school. We stepped outside and it was dead quiet apart from some birds tweeting in the trees.

“She was really puzzled and I had to explain to her what she was hearing.”

A Mayday spokeswoman said: “The patient notification exercise is not over yet, and we continue to try to contact every family to offer them the chance of a repeat hearing test.”

She said those who have not yet received a letter should get in touch with Mayday.

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