It took ten hours for two, public medical facilities in; a centro médico and a hospital, to arrive at the correct diagnosis. The delay proved fatal for the patient.

This occurred in Valencia where a man had suffered an acute heart attack but the doctors in both places put his condition down to pneumonia. By the time the ICU realised what was reallywrong, it was too late, and the man died three hours later.

As a result, the Valencian Health Service will have to compensate the family with €128,000, according to the ruling of the Valencian Regional’s Legal Advisory Council.

It was November, 2022, when the patient’s first went to the Urgencias at his local centro médico, complaining of chest pain and difficulties breathing. As it was a Saturday, they were only attending to emergencies, so they performed a chest X-ray, but the doctor told him to go, independently, to hospital.

Despite having suffered an undiagnosed heart attack, the man got into his car and drove a short distance to the hospital. There, he waited in the triage area and underwent several tests, including blood work and an electrocardiogram, among others.

However, afterward, the doctor diagnosed him with pneumonia. He was admitted and given a course of medication that was not indicated for his actual condition (the heart attack) but after several hours, his condition worsened, and at 17.00h, the man began to experience sweating, hypotension (low blood pressure), oxygen desaturation, a very rapid respiratory rate, and wheezing. He was feeling extremely ill as a result of the inappropriate treatment.

So they carried out further tests, including another chest x-ray and blood work, but given his condition, he was transferred to the ICU at 19.44h. There, ten hours after his arrival at the centro médico that morning, they finally decided that he had suffered a heart attack. However, the patient experienced a rapid decline and went into a second cardiac arrest, after which he died.

For all these reasons, the family claims there was a clear diagnostic error, a failure to use appropriate technical resources, and a lack of information regarding the severity of his condition.

The expert medical report concludes that there was negligence on the part of the outpatient clinic staff, who told him to go to the hospital on his own, without providing supplemental oxygen or an electrocardiogram.

At the hospital, he waited more than two hours to be seen, and although tests revealed myocardial necrosis of the inferior wall of the heart, indicating a heart attack, the report states that there was a “considerable” diagnostic delay. Despite the results, he was taken to Internal Medicine to treat pneumonia he did not have.

Only in the ICU, according to this report, were the tests correctly interpreted. However, because so many hours had passed, the ischemia and myocardial necrosis had been prolonged, leading to heart failure and the final cardiac arrest that caused his death.

A second expert medical report also determines that, although the care at the centro médico, was in accordance with established standards, the electrocardiogram was misinterpreted at the hospital. Consequently, cardiac care was not initiated in the ICU, nor was the heart-attack protocol activated.

All of this makes it clear that the chain of medical errors culminated in the tragic outcome, and therefore the Valencian Government upholds the family’s claim and urges the Health Department to pay the €128,379 compensation to the deceased’s wife and daughter.

(News: Valencia)

Keywords: Diagnostic Error, Heart Attack, ICU, Centro Médico, Hospital, Compensation, Pneumonia

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