A mother-of-three died from a brain haemorrhage just days after being sent home from hospital with headache pills following a car crash.

Mother died of brain haemorrhage after being sent home from GP with headache pill
article in the Telegraph

Extract 1:

"Lorraine King, 44, was told her head pain and drowsiness were the result of whiplash caused by a recent minor car accident.

She was given Nurofen and Co-codamol but rushed back to hospital four days later where an MRI scan revealed a haemorrhage on her brain.

Within 24 hours of the scan she had slipped into a coma and was declared brain dead the following day.

Miss King leaves daughter Hannah, 18, to raise her autistic brother Adam, 16, and her younger half-sister, Terri (corr), 14."

If you read all of the article you will see that there is a deplorable and repeated failure to take seriously Lorraine King's symptoms. What a terrible waste of a life.

Extract 2.

"A post mortem examination at Hornsey Mortuary gave cause of death as a brain haemorrhage.

The family is now considering taking legal action against Barnet Hospital and against the London Ambulance Service.

A spokesman for Barnet and Chase Farm Hospitals NHS Trust refused to comment about the case on the grounds of patient confidentiality."

My translation of ' on the grounds of patient confidentiality' is 'on the grounds of cover-up of medical mistakes'. - Those poor children left motherless!

More about the hospital hygiene problems, C Diff and MRSA...

The Big Question: Why can't we keep our hospitals clean and protect patients from infection? - Independent

Extract:

"Yesterday an investigation by the Healthcare Commission revealed an astonishing litany of failings at three hospitals in Kent run by the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust which allowed the lethal bug Clostridium Difficile to spread unchecked. Between 2004 and 2006 it infected more than 1,100 patients, directly causing the deaths of 90 and contributing to the deaths of 345. The commission found appalling standards, akin to a Third World health service, including beds crammed together, wards dirty and understaffed, and patients with urgent diarrhoea told to "go in the bed" because nurses were too busy to take them to the lavatory.

Is this just an isolated case?

Sadly not – though it is the worst to have come to light. Last year an investigation into a similar outbreak at Stoke Mandeville hospital, where 334 patients were infected and 33 died from C Difficile between 2003 and 2005, painted a very similar picture of a poorly run hospital operating under extreme pressure where doctors and managers had failed to heed warnings about the threat from the bug. Last July, the 900-bed Barnet and Chase Farm Hospitals NHS trust in north London became the first in the country to receive an official warning from the commission for putting patients at risk of infection. Serious breaches of the Hygiene Code, introduced in October 2006, which sets minimum standards for all trusts were found at the hospital.

But can we assume that hospitals are generally clean?

No. In June the Healthcare Commission reported that 99 NHS trusts admitted failing to meet minimum hygiene standards. That is one in four of the total in England. Worryingly, Barnet and Chase Farm was not among the 99. It had claimed it was meeting minimum standards but a spot check revealed poor provision of gels for cleaning hands, inconsistent and confusing messages to staff and inadequate isolation facilities. If other trusts are similarly deceived about their performance then hygiene problems may be even more widespread than the one in four figure suggests."