An inquest has found that a 10-year-old girl died after five doctors failed to diagnose her with herpes.
Coroner Mark Johns said that Adelaide mum, Bridget Klingberg, took her daughter, Briony Klingberg to the Women’s and Children’s Hospital in January 2015, but took her home that night. “She and her husband had the sense that they should not come back unless Briony got worse,” he said.
The couple then took Briony to Mount Barker Hospital, where a doctor prescribed prednisolone as he believed she had a virus or infection. The next day, he thought Briony appeared better and sent her home.
Mr Johns said that Ms Klingberg did not argue and “accepted the doctor’s advice to take Briony home and keep up the fluids and medications, including the prednisolone.”
After one day, Briony was taken to Dr Christopher Heinrich, who gave her antibiotics and diagnosed her with glandular fever. The couple then took Briony home and were told to await blood test results.
However, the inquest revealed that the blood test results were ‘odd’, and Dr Heinrich called up the couple and told them to take Briony back to the Women’s and Children’s Hospital, but Briony collapsed in the car park outside the emergency department before being taken to intensive care, where she died the next day.
After her death, it was found that Briony had died from necrosis caused by a herpes infection found at the back of her throat.
Mr Johns criticised Dr Heinrich, who he said should have taken better notes. “Dr Heinrich admitted that as he was taking the telephone calls reporting the blood results he was at his home doing some gardening. He admitted that he did not write down what he was being told nor did he elect to go to his rooms to obtain a hard copy of them despite the fact that they were being faxed there. He failed to take proper notes, he failed to take observations of Briony during the consultation,” he said.
However, Mr Johns said that he probably could not have saved Briony’s life. “His evidence in the witness box to the effect that taking and recording observations for a child that was as obviously sick as Briony would be tantamount to shifting the chairs on the Titanic is not consistent with his decision to send her home with her mother immediately after the consultation. Certainly it is not consistent with his later failure to tell the mother immediately on receiving the blood results that Briony should be conveyed to the Women’s and Children’s Hospital immediately. In saying these things I acknowledge the evidence that by then it would in all likelihood have been too late to save Briony’s life,” he added.
Mr Johns said that ‘no single medical professional’ could have noticed Briony’s deterioration. He then urged parents to see the same doctor when their children are ill.
He also made it clear that Briony’s parents were not to blame for her death.
Source: Dailymail.co.uk
