A WIDOWER has told a coroner's court he will never know if his wife would still be alive if an on-call doctor had called to their house as he had requested.
Margaret Courtney (37) died in her bedroom as her husband and five children waited for an ambulance to bring her to hospital.
Coroner Ronan Maguire was told that, since Ms Courtney's death, the North-East Doctor-on-Call (Nedoc) out-of-hours service had improved the way notes by doctors are made available to the doctor on the following shift.
Drogheda Coroner's Court heard that Thomas Courtney had rung Nedoc twice in 12 hours and it was only when he rang the family GP that an ambulance was dispatched. However, the ambulance was minutes from the Courtneys' home when it was diverted to another call in the area.
A second ambulance was dispatched and arrived at their home in Laytown, Co Meath, minutes before Ms Courtney died.
Pathologist Dr John Ryan found evidence of pneumonia but concluded she died from disseminated group A streptococcus infection with septicaemia. He said it was normally preceded by a viral infection and the symptoms come on "abruptly".
Mr Courtney said that, during the night of February 1st to 2nd, 2006, his wife's bellybutton had become "the size of my fist" and the skin around it was purple.
She had attended her GP, Dr David Madden, on January 30th, 2006. He diagnosed flu-like symptoms and prescribed painkillers.
On the evening of February 1st, Mr Courtney rang Nedoc and spoke to Dr Muireann Banim.
He told her his wife had pains in her lung area and a sore throat and was not eating or drinking.
Dr Dermot Daly was on call the following morning when, at about 7.15am, Mr Courtney rang the service again and explained that his wife's stomach had gone black. He mentioned that she had previously had surgery for an ulcer.
Dr Daly said he was aware Mr Courtney had contacted the on-call service the previous evening, but he "did not physically have Dr Banim's sheet [notes] to hand". Mr Courtney rang his GP at 8.13am, telling him he had twice rung Nedoc. He insisted that his wife had to be seen and that her condition had worsened.
The doctor said he would call for an "urgent" ambulance, which would be there within an hour. He rang Nedoc for an ambulance. Half-an-hour later Mr Courtney rang him to say his wife was unconscious.
The first ambulance was dispatched at 8.32am, but at 8.38am there was an emergency call to which it was diverted. A second ambulance was dispatched at 9am and arrived at the Courtneys' house at 9.13am. Another GP in practice with Dr Madden had just arrived and pronounced Ms Courtney dead at 9.23am.
Mr Maguire returned an open verdict. He said there was no evidence of pneumonia when she attended her GP. "I don't know if she had been seen on the morning [of her death] if anything could have been done, if it was too late."
Mr Courtney told the court: "I rang the doctor on call and they didn't come. I feel if they had come when I rang in the morning she could still be alive."