Bradford teenager died 24 hours after hospital ‘failed to give her drugs’

Laura Garner, 18, died after being admitted to Bradford Royal Infirmary on September 22 2009.

The trainee hairdresser from Baildon, West Yorkshire, was told by the on-duty specialist surgeon Mr Abid Hassan Mohammed Salih she may have been suffering from appendicitis or a urinary tract infection, Bradford Coroners’ Court heard.

But she died the next night, after being transferred to a recovery ward. Mr Salih described her as seeming “fine” and “smiling” before being transferred but Miss Garner did not survive more than 30 minutes of resuscitation attempts, the court heard.

When she was first admitted, Mr Salih recommended a series of tests and a prescription of the antibiotic Trimethoprym.

When Mr Salih returned for his night shift the next day, he found out that the tests for appendicitis had come back negative and prescribed another antibiotic, Ciproxin, to treat any possible urinary infection.

But the court heard that no-one wrote a prescription for Trimethoprym on the first night and although the Ciproxin was prescribed on the second night, it was never administered.

Mr Salih said a junior doctor could have prescribed the Trimethoprym on his recommendation, as was procedure at the time, but it was not done.

He said: “It was not prescribed. I didn’t learn that straight away, I learned that after.”

On the next night, the Ciproxin was prescribed but never given to Miss Garner.

Mr Salih said: “It was prescribed on the drug chart. According to my knowledge it was not given.”

The coroner Paul Marks asked: “Do you know why that is?”

Mr Salih responded: “I don’t know.”

Just before Miss Garner was transferred from the acute ward where she was being treated to the recovery ward where she later died, Mr Salih described talking to her.

He said: “She was fine, she was smiling to me. I reassured her.

“I was talking to her and she was talking to me. I remember she was smiling; she was even walking down to the bed. She was walking on her own.”

As she was being taken to the other ward in a wheelchair, Mr Salih said she was smiling and waving at him.

John Griffith, a consultant surgeon who was looking after Miss Garner during the day, said he had never seen a case like it.

Mr Griffith said: “In 12 years of consulting I have never seen a case progress like Laura’s.

“It was very, very unusual and very tragic for everyone involved.”