An inquest will examine how Queensland hospital staff failed to diagnose infections in two patients. Source: AAP
HOW Queensland hospital staff failed to recognise that a teenager was suffering from the deadly meningococcal disease will be one of the focuses of an inquest.
JASMYN Louise Carter-Maher, 17, was admitted to Warwick Hospital in the Darling Downs region on August 3 last year with a headache, dizziness and body aches.
Early the following morning the teenager’s condition deteriorated and she developed a rash, before she went into cardiac arrest and was unable to be revived. A pre-inquest conference in Brisbane on Tuesday heard Ms Carter-Maher died from meningococcal septicaemia. Counsel assisting the coroner Megan Jarvis said eight months earlier in the same region, 86-year-old Verris Dawn Wright died from septic shock related to a bowel infection, four days after being discharged from Oakey Hospital. Ms Jarvis said in both cases the patients had displayed symptoms consistent with suffering a severe infection. “Unfortunately, in both cases, clinical staff failed to recognise or explore sepsis as a possibility,” she said. Coroner John Lock set down a joint four-day inquest to begin on August 4 in Toowoomba. Witnesses will include nurses and doctors who were working or on call when both patients were admitted to the respective hospitals, as well as a representative from the Darling Downs Hospital and Health Service. Ms Jarvis said after the death of Ms Wright, a review recommended the urgent implementation of the Queensland Adult Deterioration Detection System to help hospital staff treat deteriorating patients. The inquest will examine the implementation of that system, as well as the adequacy of care provided to both patients.