Teen With Tonsillitis Dies After Being Misdiagnosed With H1N1

This is the third story recently of people dying from misdiagnosis in the UK.

By Chris Brooke
Last updated at 10:13 AM on 17th August 2009

The distraught father of a teenage girl who died after her tonsillitis was deemed to be swine flu is calling for over-the-phone diagnosis to be scrapped.

Karl Hartey accused the Government of having ‘blood on its hands’ after his 16-year-old daughter Charlotte died from complications arising from tonsillitis.

The case will further increase concerns that illnesses, some of them serious, are increasingly being misdiagnosed as swine flu.

Following revelations that 16-year-olds are being employed at a swine flu call centre, there are also fears that many of those doling out advice and the anti-viral drug Tamilfu are not qualified to do so.

Last week the parents of a girl of two told how their daughter died of meningitis after she was misdiagnosed.

In the latest case Charlotte Hartey was told she had swine flu over the phone by a local GP.

She was prescribed Tamiflu but her condition deteriorated and she was admitted to Royal Shrewsbury Hospital on July 29 where she died two days later after her lungs collapsed when bacteria overwhelmed her immune system.

A post-mortem found Charlotte, from Oswestry, Shropshire, died from natural causes.

Her father Karl attacked Ministers over the introduction of call centres, manned by teenagers to diagnose potential swine flu cases.

Mr Hartey, 42, said: ‘The Government has blood on its hands.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1206908/Swine-flu-diagnosis-phone-scrapped-says-father-daughter-died-tonsillitis.html#ixzz0OUOCPR7L

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