Australia: Boy dies after repeated public hospital misdiagnosis

Ignoring grave symptoms and failing to do any tests is just incomprehensible. And what was wrong with giving precautionary antibiotics in such grave circumstances?

AN eight-year-old boy was sent home by two Sydney hospitals before dying of meningitis a week before Christmas. Isaraelu Pele, a year two student at Punchbowl Public School, was told by medical staff at Bankstown and Westmead Children's Hospital he needed only to take painkillers and drink lemonade, despite pleas for help from his family. Now, instead of watching him in his church's Christmas Eve musical tomorrow, his parents will bury the gentle young boy they call Elu.

He became the latest victim of the NSW hospital crisis after falling ill on December 13 and then being passed from one medical professional to the next without a correct diagnosis. When he first became ill, complaining of nausea, headaches and vomiting, his mother took him to Bankstown Medical Centre. "The doctor told us to give him Gatorade and he prescribed him anti-nausea medication," his mother, Fai Pele said. When her son was still sick last Saturday, suffering severe head and neck pain, Mrs Pele took him to their family general practitioner, who prescribed him Panamax.

On Sunday afternoon, the family were attending carols at Wiley Park when Elu started vomiting blood and Mr Pele immediately rushed him to Bankstown Hospital around 6pm. "He was vomiting in front of the van and the blood came up from his mouth," Mrs Pele said. Elu recorded a temperature of 39 degrees and was initially placed in a hospital bed for tests, but asked to vacate for another patient at 8pm. He lay on his mother's lap in the waiting room from 8pm until 11pm when doctors discharged him, telling Mrs Pele there was nothing wrong with her son.

"He was still complaining of neck and back pain, he couldn't keep his head up," Mrs Pele said. "We were sitting there from 8 to 11. They discharged us from the waiting area, they said to give him Panamax and lemonade." However, Elu's condition worsened overnight. He could not eat, continued to vomit blood and complained of extreme pain in his head and neck. He stopped being able to walk.

On Monday at 10am, his parents took him to Westmead Children's Hospital, where they remained for 12 hours. "His head was rolling around, he was vomiting blood, his fever was 38 degrees. he couldn't even look at us," Mrs Pele said. But at 10.30pm, doctors told Mrs Pele, who works as an aged-care nurse, to take her son home. "The registered nurse came up to me and said, 'You are free to go home'," Mrs Pele said. "They said they couldn't find anything wrong with him.

"Telling us to go home was not fair. He was still sick, he wasn't eating, it was really painful for us. "I said 'Look at him, he's still sick.' They tried to force him to walk and sit up, but he couldn't. He kept falling on me. They said give him Panamax."

On the following evening, Mrs Pele panicked when Elu's forehead grew cold while he was sleeping about 6pm. The family rushed him to Bankstown Hospital. Little Elu still had a pulse when he arrived at the hospital. However, about 40 minutes later, doctors told Mrs Pele her son had died. "The doctors came in and said, 'Your son is dead'," Mr Pele said. "They showed no respect for the family. They didn't even say it in a polite manner."

The family said a coroner had phoned them the next day to tell them Elu had died from meningitis, a serious illness that is curable if treated promptly. Elu lived with his five brothers and sisters, aged five to 19, at his family home in Bankstown.

Health Minister Reba Meagher said the child's death has been referred to the Coroner for investigation. "The death of a child at any time is extremely tragic and our thoughts and sympathies are with the child's family, particularly so close to Christmas," she said. Mrs Pele said she was considering legal action against the hospital. "I feel so angry, I want to sue them, It's the loss of my little boy," she said.

Source

Mike Pechar has just agreed to blog occasionally here so that should increase the variety of the posts. Mike has just put up on his own blog a post about Huckabee that gave me a belly-laugh.

There is such a lot going on in the world of healthcare that I would probably be receptive if there were someone else with a libertarian/conservative perspective who wanted to become a co-blogger here too. I get about 150 hits a day here so that is far from top-line but still pretty good as blogs in general go