October 15th, 2009
A widow is considering legal action against an NHS trust after her husband died following an operation.
Joseph Gill, 58, was admitted to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary in July for a lung cancer operation. However, he was given the wrong medication six times when staff mixed him up with another patient and he fell ill.
Despite this, he was taken in for the surgery to receive part of his lung on July 7th. Complications arose and he died on July 16th.
Eileen Gill, 55, said she blames NHS Grampian for her husband’s death and claims the nurses had called him George and repeatedly given him medication meant for a heart patient.
She is now demanding answers in order to consider pursuing a clinical negligence compensation claim.
"We’ve got a solicitor but can’t do anything until we know what drug he was given," she commented.
A spokesperson for NHS Grampian denied that the medication mix-up had led to Mr Gill’s death but said that lessons had been learnt since the mistakes.
This comes after research from the Care Quality Commission revealed that one in nine of the 392 NHS trusts in the UK performed badly or failed to improve in the last year.
Tags: Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, Cancer Operation, Care Quality, Clinical Negligence Compensation, Compensation Claim, Grampian, Heart Patient, Joseph Gill, July 7th, Lung Cancer, Medication, Mr Gill, Nhs Trust, Nhs Trusts, Nurses, Quality Commission, Six Times, Solicitor, Spokesperson
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September 4th, 2009
A woman died because her meningitis was mistakenly diagnosed as swine flu, an inquest has heard.
Jasvir Kaur Gill, 48, had begun to feel unwell in early August and called the NHS helpline, which diagnosed her with swine flu.
She was told to get some Tamiflu from the hospital, but this did not appear to have an effect and she started to feel worse.
Her son Sukhvinder Gill called a paramedic out, who checked the patient over and advised her to take paracetamol and water before leaving five minutes later.
However, Ms Gill had a heart attack five hours after the visit and although her family tried to perform CPR, she died shortly afterwards.
An inquest discovered that Ms Gill had died from meningococcal septiceamia.
"Everyone seems to be [talking about] swine flu, swine flu, swine flu. What she had were also symptoms of meningitis, but they didn’t think of that," commented Mr Gill.
In order for a clinical negligence claim to succeed, it must be proven that the actions of health professionals caused further injury, pain or suffering to the victim.
Tags: Clinical Negligence, Early August, Five Minutes, Flu, Health Professionals, Heart Attack, Inquest, Kaur, Mr Gill, Negligence Claim, Nhs Helpline, Paracetamol, Paramedic, Quot, Swine Flu, Symptoms Of Meningitis, Tamiflu, Unwell, Woman
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