Young girl died from sepsis two days after doctors sent her home from hospital
Goda Janulevicuite (pictured) died on her way to hospital after doctors in Bedfordshire were unable to spot signs of sepsis
A six-year-old girl died two days after hospital staff failed to notice she was suffering from sepsis, an inquest heard today.
Goda Janulevicuite was went to as taken to hospital after suffering from a high fever, back pain, a bad rash and abdominal tenderness.
She was diagnosed with chicken pox and given paracetamol by doctors who sent her home.
Her condition deteriorated hours later and her parents took her back to Luton and Dunstable Hospital in Bedfordshire.
She died on the way to Great Ormond Street Hospital in London where medics tried to transfer her to for emergency care.
The hospital had failed to detect the complications which later lead to sepsis, a serious case report found.
It also concluded Goda’s sepsis symptoms were missed when she was admitted and treated for chicken pox.
A coroner at Bedfordshire Coroners’ Court in Ampthill heard how a GP visited Goda at her Luton home on April 4, 2016, after receiving a call from her father to say that she was unwell and unable to walk to the surgery.
Dr Tahir Mehmood, said: 'Her father phoned me and said that she was unwell and has chicken pox for the last three days and asked me to come and see her at home.
Luton and Dunstable Hospital (pictured) failed to spot signs of complications that could lead to sepsis, an inquest heard
'She was unable to walk to the surgery and she had no history of trauma so I thought that I should go and see her.'
He told the inquest that during his visit, he discovered Goda’s parents had painted her with a Lithuanian green antiseptic lotion to treat a rash, describing her as 'striking green'.
'It was unusual for me and I had never seen something like that before and she was painted from head to toe,' he said. 'The paint was used as an antiseptic lotion, her father told me. I could not read what it was for because the bottle was in Lithuanian.'
During the examination, he said that he was concerned that she had back pain but there were no signs of more serious illnesses than chicken pox. Dr Mehmood concluded there were no signs at that stage of serious illness.
But the youngster’s condition worsened and her parents decided to take her to hospital. She died two days later on April 6, 2016.
Accident and emergency doctor Gyorgyi Kamaras told the inquest that diagnosing Goda with sepsis at Luton and Dunstable Hospitale was difficult due to the green paint.
Dr Kamaras was running the department and said she had been consulted by a junior doctor who informed her that Goda had developed sepsis.
The six-year-old was on her way to Great Ormond Street Hospital (pictured) when she died as result of sepsis
The medic then asked her colleague to provide sepsis treatment, she told the hearing.
'The one thing that struck me was the green colouring,' she said. 'Assessing unwell children involves a lot of clinical examination and looking at the child was completely taken away from us.
'For example, we could not see if she was pale or flushed and we could not tell if the skin was mottled.
'So part of the clinical examination was taken away from us and it was difficult to assess how clinically unwell she was.'
Dr Kamaras maintained the appropriate procedures and guidelines were followed at the time despite different levels of sodium chloride intravenously to what the guidelines provide.
The guidelines state the 20ml/kg be given to a patient with sepsis within the first hour of treatment. Goda was prescribed 10ml/kg.
Dr Kamaras added: '10ml of fluid at a time within the first hour means 200ml all together and she was receiving fluid for the whole hour.
'At the point I saw her there was nothing else that I could have done. She had been given all of the treatment and unfortunately some patients will die from sepsis.
'We followed all the procedures and guidelines. Unfortunately there are patients that are going to die from severe sepsis.'
Dr Mehmood described his shock at hearing of Goda’s death, saying: 'I was shocked to hear that died because when I saw her she was a child that was cheerful, happy and although she had a temperature of 37.5 degrees, she was quite well.'
The inquest, which is listed for five days, continues.