Inquest hears of missed chances in Gaia’s care

THERE were “missed opportunities” in the communications between the specialist doctors treating teenager Gaia Pope-Sutherland before she disappeared, an inquest heard.

The teenager, who suffered with severe epilepsy, was found dead near cliffs 11 days after she went missing from her home in Swanage, Dorset in November 2017.

As well as epilepsy, Miss PopeSutherland had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder after disclosing she had been raped by a man when she was 16.

Dorset Coroner’s Court heard evidence from neurologist Professor David Chadwick, who had been called to give his opinion on the care the 19-year-old had received.

She was diagnosed with epilepsy in 2013 and in November 2016 referred to a specialist in London, because her family wanted a second opinion. She was seen in March 2017 and recommended for brain surgery.

Prof Chadwick, an emeritus professor of neurology at the University of

Liverpool, told the court Miss PopeSutherland had “severe and complex” and “unusual” epilepsy.

Asked how bad her epilepsy was, he replied: “I would almost say she is unique in my experience. I have not come across the features she presented in my clinical practice.”

He told the court there was a “complex relationship” between epilepsy and mental health.

Miss Pope-Sutherland had been assessed by psychologists on three separate occasions between December 2016 and October 2017.

This included a period in a mental health unit in the February and March, but doctors had not informed the neurologists treating her epilepsy.

Prof Chadwick described this failure as a “missed opportunity” to review her epilepsy care.

He said: “If one says getting one thing wrong is perhaps excusable, but perhaps three or four things wrong you might use the term gross.”

The inquest continues.