Boy dying of meningitis pleaded with doctors to save his life - inquest heard

However, staff at Darlington Memorial Hospital failed to diagnose the deadly brain disease until it was too late – initially diagnosing it as a migraine, despite warnings from the boy’s mother.

The inquest, at Newcastle Civic Centre, was told the doctor on duty on the children’s ward failed to carry out a full series of tests to discover whether ten-year-old William Cressey had meningitis.

A tearful Cheryl Cressey told how her son spent his last few hours in agony, describing how she first pleaded to have him admitted before begging medical staff to administer antibiotics.

William was taken to the hospital in the early evening of Sunday, February 27, 2005.

He had been unwell for a few days but his condition deteriorated and he complained of a severe headache and neck pain.

An out-of-hours GP service advised Mrs Cressey to take him to hospital immediately.

However, when she arrived at A&E at Darlington, she was initially told he was suffering from a migraine and was advised to take him home and give him Calpol.

Mrs Cressey said she knew her son was seriously ill as, when he was three or four years old, he had been very ill with suspected meningitis.

She refused to leave the hospital and insisted he was admitted to the ward.

However, once there, Mrs Cressey said despite her protestations, doctors again refused to treat him for meningitis.

Mrs Cressey has now instructed Kris Inskip, a specialist in clinical negligence at Manchester law firm Pannone LLP, to pursue a case against the hospital.

While giving evidence, she broke down several times as she recounted how she could not get the medical staff to believe how ill her son was.

She said: “I kept going back and asking for somebody to look at him, but nobody would come.

“They rolled their eyes at me, they tutted at me, they turned their backs on me.”

Doctors believed he may have been suffering from pneumonia or a respiratory infection and ordered a chest x-ray.

However, later that evening, William was discharged.

Mrs Cressey said she believed it was because the ward was short-staffed.

She said: “They started to ring around people as they didn’t have enough staff.

“They were talking about which children they were going to send home and William was going home.”

Mrs Cressey said they had barely been back at their home in Hurworth Place, near Darlington, an hour when William started convulsing violently and was taken back to the hospital.

This time, she said, staff realised something was seriously wrong.

Yet, despite requests, they still did not administer antibiotics immediately and a brain scan was also refused.

At one point, the doctor on the ward was about to inject William, who by this time was in severe pain, with antibiotics.

However, the consultant called through and told the doctor not to give William the drugs.

The young boy became distraught when he saw the doctor put the syringe back in its cardboard box, said Mrs Cressey.

“William got hold of his hand and said ‘please help me, if you don’t help me I’m going to die’,” she said. “But he just walked away from his bed.”

Antibiotics were eventually administered intravenously but not until several hours after William had been readmitted to the hospital.

In the early hours of Tuesday morning, William suffered from a huge seizure and did not regain consciousness.

Shortly after, he was taken to Newcastle General Hospital.

Examination confirmed that he was brain dead and life support was withdrawn. He was pronounced dead on March 1.

During cross-examination by the hospital’s lawyer, Nia Drabbell, Mrs Cressey denied she had been happy for William to return home on the Monday afternoon.

She also refuted claims that William’s condition was improving throughout the day.

Dr Saadia Rehman was senior house officer on the children’s ward when William was admitted.

She said he did not show many of the symptoms associated with meningitis and she believed his neck pain was muscular.

Blood tests later indicated that despite high levels of certain proteins, which indicated an infection, his white blood cell count did not give much cause for concern.

However, under questioning from coroner David Mitford, she admitted she only carried out one test for neck stiffness and did not use other methods to check for meningitis.

The senior nurse on the ward, Karen Guy, said that in her opinion the results of the blood tests did not give much cause for concern and that William was improving when she finished her shift.

The inquest continues.