Meningococcal death of students: the doctor granted permanent deletion of the name

A doctor’s name will be kept secret after concerns were raised about the care provided to a young medical student who dies of meningococcal disease.

Zachary Gravatt died on July 8, 2009, hours after addressing his GP with a fever, chills, headaches, and groin pain.

The 22-year-old was admitted to Auckland City Hospital at 1:43 p.m. M. And, despite his rapid deterioration during the afternoon, he was not transferred to the Department of Intensive Care Medicine until 6.40 p.m. M.

He died 35 minutes later, died of septicemia of the meningococcal bacteria strain C.

Two investigations into his death have been carried out at Auckland City Hospital after he was admitted on suspicion of having swine flu.

The second investigation, held in October 2018, was ordered by Deputy Attorney General Virginia Hardy after an anonymous letter claiming to be from a staff member of the Auckland District Health Board (ADHB) alleging a “cover up” .

In June, the High Court heard a judicial review and requests from two doctors associated with Gravatt’s care that they wanted his identity permanently suppressed.

One of the physicians involved had his name removed by Superior Court Judge Paul Davison.

The submission of the other doctor for the deletion of the name was not accepted because they provided adequate care to Gravatt.

“The fact that [he] participated in providing appropriate and competent care and treatment for Zachary in July 2009, he could not damage his reputation, “Davison said.

And, in the judge’s opinion, the passage of time since then would not make any contemporary media report of Gravatt’s death unfair or damaging to his reputation.

The entire content of the anonymous letter denouncing the “cover-up” was also deleted.

During the second investigation, the evidence from the doctor on duty was that he was stuck in traffic as he tried to return from a Ponsonby restaurant to the hospital to treat Gravatt.

It was a claim that a coroner later said “had no support for the proposal.”

When coroner Morag McDowell released his findings last April, he said the doctor’s evidence about being “completely stopped” in traffic was unfounded.

The doctor on call and a colleague from the hospital were at a Japanese restaurant in Ponsonby when they received the first call about Gravatt’s worsening condition.

The investigation heard that the call ended at 6.14pm, 61 minutes before Gravatt died.

The coroner also noted that a nurse had made a flippant comment about the need for the doctor to finish the dessert, yet “there is no evidence that this is the real reason for any delay in his return to the hospital.”

But he found that even if the doctor had returned to the hospital earlier, it was unlikely that he would have changed Gravatt’s outcome.

The doctor was granted name removal due to the possibility of unfair or unfounded damage to the reputation of the doctors.

An earlier version of this article incorrectly attributed citations to Judge Davison. The article has been updated to modify them.