Docs thought pneumonia was anxiety, woman dead

The incident occurred in December last year after the woman had initially visited doctors at a clinic in Förslöv, southern Sweden, where doctors noted that she was coughing, had fever, and a high sedimentation rate.

The doctor prescribed antibiotics for what was considered to be a throat infection. But back at home afterwards, the woman’s husband noticed that her condition was deteriorating and after three days he took her to a weekend and evening emergency ward in Ängelholm.

The woman was giving calming tablets for what doctors considered to be a panic attack and was sent home with no further tests being taken on her pulse, blood pressure, lung status, breathing frequency, or temperature, according to the Helsinglands Dagbladet newspaper.

The woman died that night of what an autopsy revealed was double pneumonia.

Now, the incident has been reported to the Socialstyrelsen which considers that “in the current case, a prescription of [the drug] Sobril cannot be considered to in accordance with the knowledge and proven experience”.

The doctors at the emergency ward blame the lack of inter-ward patient records to be the problem, claiming that they would have acted differently had they had access to the 55-year-old’s patient records.

However, the Socialstyrelsen has stated that this is no excuse, and blamed the head of the hospital as well as the medical system used by the Ängelholm clinic.

They added that shared patient records would improve patient treatments and directed criticism toward the clinic in Förslöv as well.

However, the national board did not consider the situation to be so extreme as to issue a warning to anyone involved.

TT/The Local/og

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