City worker died after a hospital receptionist said ‘she’s not that ill’
A CITY worker who died of organ failure waited 90 minutes for a doctor after a hospital receptionist decided she ‘wasn’t that sick’, an inquest heard.
It was the first of several decisions by staff which ended in the death of Madhumita Mandal four days later.
The 30-year-old, who worked in IT for insurer LV=, was taken to Croydon University Hospital in September 2013 by her worried husband after she had been vomiting for more than four hours.
But receptionist Triveni Dhavade referred her to a minor ail- ment unit run by Virgin Care rather than the NHS casualty unit in the same building.
Mrs Dhavade, whose only qualification in the UK was as a mort- gage advisor, had trained as a pharmacist in India but never practised and had worked as a receptionist at the hospital for 17 years.
Mrs Mandal’s husband pleaded for a nurse as his wife repeatedly vomited in the waiting room, but they waited for more than an hour before help arrived.
When she finally did see a doctor, a catalogue of disagreements meant it was left to a junior medic to refer her to intensive care.
She died of blood poisoning and multiple organ failure four days later. Mrs Dhavade told the inquest: ‘She wasn’t that sick. I wasn’t to know that she was that sick.’ Mrs Mandal’s husband, Prabhanjan Behera told
‘He didn’t realise how unwell she was’
the inquest how they arrived at the hospital just after 7am.
He said his wife – known as Maddie – suffered from endemetriosis and was due to have surgery in a few days to remove cysts, but was still directed to the minor injuries unit.
But the inquest heard that patients were referred to casualty only if they suffered from conditions including chest pain or palpitations – but not for vomiting.
Mrs Dhavade logged Mrs Mandal’s arrival at 7.24am and she was finally seen by urgent care paediatric nurse Lynda Walder at around 8.20am, who transferred her to casualty.
She was moved into the resuscitation room and finally seen by a junior doctor at 8.45am, almost an hour and a half after she was first logged as arriving.
Dr Jessica Davies, who was in her second year of training since qualifying and had been at the hospital for a month, was the first doctor to see her. Struggling to fit a drip, she called in a more senior colleague, emergency department registrar Dr Ademola Tokan-Lawal.
Dr Davies said: ‘I was very concerned by her at this point.
‘I was shaking, putting her date of birth into the computer and I got it wrong – but I just thought it didn’t matter.’
She told the inquest that a nurse asked if Mrs Mandal should be referred to intensive care but that Dr Tokan- Lawal insisted she just needed fluids for her heart rate to come down.
She said: ‘I asked him why he had not got the medical team involved. I said, “was it because you thought it was gastroenteritis?” and he said, “yes”.’ Worried that the treatment plan was not right, she said: ‘I was quite concerned at this point that he was not taking it seriously because although she had said she was feeling better her observations did not show that.’
She added: ‘That was the moment I realised that this man really did not understand how unwell she was.’
Dr Davies said she was ‘quite aggressive’ telling the registrar the patient needed to go to intensive care immediately.
‘He said, “You can refer if you want but they will not accept her as she is not unwell enough’ so I made the referral myself,” she said.
The inquest in Croydon continues.