Five year old girl was left “traumatised” and in pain after physician assistant wrongly prescribed vaginal pessary

A 5 year old girl in England was left bleeding, traumatised, and screaming with pain after a physician associate (PA; now known as a physician assistant) wrongly prescribed a pessary to treat itching and vaginal discharge, an investigation by the parliamentary and health service ombudsman has found.1Vaginal pessaries should not be used in prepubescent children, but a GP authorised the prescription on the basis of the PA's recommendation, and a pharmacy dispensed the pessary without questioning it.In March 2023 the girl's mother, named as Mrs N, took her daughter, H, to their general practice in the East Midlands. She saw a PA her mother thought was a GP, who suspected that H had thrush. The PA opted for a clotrimazole pessary (an antifungal) and cream.In fact, said the ombudsman's report, H's symptoms were consistent with paediatric vulvovaginitis, not usually caused by yeast infections such as thrush, which are rare in...