Tragic family’s triumph for compensation

Nov 30 2009 by Dan Warburton, The Journal

THE daughter of a cancer-stricken pensioner has won thousands of pounds in compensation after hospital staff took three years to diagnose his terminal illness.

Grandfather Steven Brown was given just months to live after being diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer in February 2007.

The 70-year-old, of Seaham, County Durham, repeatedly complained of chest pain and physical fatigue when he visited Sunderland Royal Hospital.

But despite carrying out x-rays and finding an inflammatory lesion in his lung, he was not referred to an oncologist until he was diagnosed.

By then the tumour was terminal and after two bouts of chemotherapy, he was told there was nothing more medics could do.

Mr Brown launched legal action in the months leading up to his death in March last year, claiming he had been given a “death sentence” following the mistake.

He was unable to attend the funeral of his partner, Eileen, because he was critically ill after undergoing his first bout of energy-sapping chemotherapy.

And after he died earlier this year, his daughter, Lorraine Gorman, fought the legal battle in his memory and insisted her father would have survived if doctors had acted on his concerns immediately.