Festival staff ‘ignored’ teen while he was dying in tent of meningitis
A TEENAGER who died of meningitis was ‘ignored’ by medical staff at a music festival and left in a coma on a tent floor, a damning report has found.
George Zographou, 18, was told he was suffering from dehydration after falling ill.
A report found that the teenager lost consciousness, but staff at the Boardmasters event in Newquay, Cornwall, thought he was asleep.
A doctor refused to call 999, instead telling his worried mother, from Bristol, to call a taxi to take him to hospital.
Mr Zographou, who was known as Zoggy to his friends, died five days later from meningitis B.
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt ordered an investigation into his death last August and that of 16-year-old Isabel Gentry, who also died of meningitis after doctors misdiagnosed her with a stomach bug.
The government report found that the teenagers’ lives could have been saved, had medical staff spotted tell-tale signs of the lethal bacterial infection.
It said Mr Zographou spent the first night of the five- day music festival being sick in his tent, even though he had not drunk any alcohol.
Security guards took him to a medical tent after they found him crawling on his hands and knees complaining of crippling cramp in his legs.
Tests revealed he had low blood pressure and an increased heart rate. He also had a mottled bruise and a rash on his left foot. But despite displaying symptoms of meningitis, medical staff diagnosed him with dehydration and a stress ankle fracture.
They did not call 999 and ‘ignored’ his mother’s fears that his condition could be very serious, instead giving him morphine to ease the pain, the report found.
It said: ‘George became agitated and was put on the floor. His mum [via phone] asked that he be sent to hospital. The doctor said it was not an emergency so he would need to go in a taxi and pay ... George told his mum he wanted to come home.
‘George’s mum tried to persuade the medical team that George’s condition was more serious but they refused to send him to hospital. His parents therefore left to pick him up and he was moved from the medical tent to a welfare tent via a buggy to await his parents.
‘In the welfare tent George became agitated and aggressive with the medical team then lost consciousness and was thought to be sleeping.
‘Staff in the welfare tent were told to provide one- on- one observation and the medical team left. George was in fact in a coma and soon after went into cardiac arrest.’
The report made 12 recommendations to improve the care of patients who had suspected meningitis. Medical staff and volunteers at festivals are to be given improved training in spotting the signs of the condition, which affects some 3,200 people a year. They will also need to be approved by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).
In addition, Public Health England ( PHE) is to review its leaflets on vaccinations and meningitis. The report also followed the death of teenager Isabel, who, like George, went to Orchard School in Bristol.
An inquest heard she died of meningitis days after being sent home from hospital with a stomach virus in May 2016. She was eventually readmitted to Bristol Royal Infirmary and died two days later.
Mr Hunt has since met with both families and apologised on behalf of the Health Service.
George’s mother Elaine Zographou, 64, said of the report: ‘It’s too late for my son, and it’s too late for our family. There’s no real comfort anywhere for us.’ She did, however, call it ‘a step forward’.
‘One of the main things that has come out of this for me is that they’re giving more power to parents, and they’re actually listening to parents,’ she added.
Meningitis is a bacterial infection that causes inflammation of the lining of the brain and spinal cord. With early diagnosis and antibiotic treatment, children can make a full recovery.
However, it is often spotted too late to be treated effectively, meaning that vaccination is the best protection.
‘More power to parents’