£20,000 settlement obtained for widow of man who died from dehydration

Posted 24/01/2014

Julie Crossley, a medical injury lawyer at Ashtons Legal, has obtained a settlement for the widow of a man from Leeds in his late 50s who died of irreversible dehydration. Mr W was a diabetic with a history of heart problems who had been on medication for some time. He had been taking Metformin and his GP increased the dose following which he became unwell.

Over a period of several days, two different GPs failed to identify or to consider that the diarrhoea was probably caused by the increased drug dosage and to recommend treatment or make further investigations. One GP made the assumption that the illness was linked to his recent holiday. By the time he was admitted to hospital and the problem was identified correctly it was too late to save his life.

Julie comments: “Unfortunately failures in diagnosis are all too common. In this case there was also a question over whether it was appropriate to increase the dose of his medication in the first place given his other health problems. In many of the cases we handle there is not just a single error which causes someone to suffer unnecessarily but a string of events which when combined result in injury. In this case although a settlement was agreed, liability was not admitted.”