The family of an 19-year-old girl who died of an undetected brain tumour following 11 visits to a Penafiel hospital are taking the medical establishment to court for damages. They have also lodged criminal proceedings after an autopsy showed their daughter had a tumour weighing 1.67 kilos, and yet the hospital had never authorised any tests that might have saved her life.
Talking to Lusa news agency, the family’s lawyer Filomena Pereira has not specified the amount of damages being sought at the same time that a criminal inquiry gets underway into why Sara Moreira was denied the chance of treatment.
Citing medical negligence, Pereira explained that “in spite of the girl vomiting, losing consciousness and being unable to control urine, she was never submitted to a TAC or an MRI”.
A TAC, for example, “could have allowed the correct diagnosis, in good time”.
The full story is covered today in Jornal de Notícias which explains how, for three years, Sara Moreira was admitted to casualty at Hospital Padre Américo only to be told “on all occasions” that her symptoms were due to “a state of anxiety”.
Sara Moreira died two days after her last visit to the hospital.
It was only then that her distraught parents came to realise that their daughter had been battling a disease, without any recourse to treatment, since she was 16.
Say defence lawyers: “The doctors did not act with due diligence” and are therefore to blame.
The hospital has declined to answer calls for a statement, adds Lusa.
