Confidential Settlement After Pediatrician Fails to Diagnose Infant’s Bacterial Meningitis

In 1989, after a 7-1/2 month-old baby had run a fever and had been cranky for three days, his mother scheduled an appointment with the child’s pediatrician for that same day. She told the doctor the child’s fever had not responded to Tylenol, he was lethargic and not eating. In fact, during a blood test and a supra-pubic urine tap, both painful procedures for a child, he barely whimpered. The doctor misdiagnosed the child’s condition as a viral syndrome and sent the two of them home. Approximately two hours later, the child began having seizures and was taken to the hospital where bacterial meningitis was diagnosed. The initial administration of antibiotics ordered by the pediatrician was below the recommended dosage. The child now suffers permanent hearing loss, visual impairment, mental retardation. and hemipareses.