hospital emergency department<\/a> where she had a CT venogram; a quick, non-invasive imaging test using dye contrast to assess veins.<\/p>\nThe radiologist found a 9mm aneurysm in a blood vessel on the left side of Sanderson\u2019s brain, with no evidence it had ruptured.<\/p>\n
About 30 minutes later, when Sanderson had returned to her hospital bed, the aneurysm burst with fatal consequences.<\/p>\n
A CT scan showed Sanderson had suffered a sudden, severe bleed into the space surrounding her brain and upper neck area of her spine.<\/p>\n
Doctors felt it was a non-survivable brain injury. Sanderson was taken off life support the next day, and died soon after.<\/p>\n
\u2018Bright, thoughtful and loving\u2019 <\/p>\n
Maunder said Alecia was the youngest of her four children, who had a quiet strength and authority all of her own. <\/p>\n
\u201cShe was bright, thoughtful and loving, and always giving to others.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maunder said she left the family with the most precious gift of all, her beautiful baby girl. <\/p>\n
\u201cThrough her daughter, Alecia\u2019s love lives on. We miss Alecia every day.\u201d<\/p>\n
The man she was soon to wed told NZME that five years on, he and others lived with the tragic loss each day.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was a mum to our beautiful 10-week-old girl, my fianc\u00e9e and a great friend.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe meant so much to so many people, and her loss continues to be felt deeply by all of us,\u201d Sam Hammond said.<\/p>\n
A year after her death the GP for her estate applied for cover for a treatment injury, with a diagnosis of subarachnoid haemorrhage 30 minutes after the CT venogram, possibly related to the scan. <\/p>\n
In January 2023, another GP reviewed Sanderson\u2019s treatment and found the care provided during multiple consultations was \u201cthorough and appropriate\u201d with no significant failures. <\/p>\n
He noted the symptoms \u201cdid not indicate a serious condition at the time\u201d and that even an earlier referral to the emergency department would have been unlikely to change the outcome.<\/p>\n
He said the CT scan on October 27, 2021 was the correct course to undertake.<\/p>\n
An emergency medicine specialist said Sanderson\u2019s debilitating headaches indicated a \u201crapidly growing aneurysm at risk of imminent rupture\u201d but he did not consider the scan caused it.<\/p>\n
He said the procedure typically led to a drop in blood pressure rather than an increase, which was thought to trigger such events and an earlier CT scan would not have changed the outcome.<\/p>\n
A neurosurgeon\u2019s opinion was that it was likely an \u201cunstable and fragile aneurysm\u201d which would have bled whether or not the CT venogram was done. <\/p>\n
Claim declined; review sought<\/p>\n
In February 2023, ACC declined the estate\u2019s claim because it did not meet the criteria for a treatment injury. <\/p>\n
The estate then sought a review because of what it said were \u201cfactual errors\u201d in the decision, including the timing of the Covid vaccine and whether it might have contributed to the rupture.<\/p>\n
The review upheld ACC\u2019s decision and the matter went to court.<\/p>\n
Judge Spiller acknowledged two doctors\u2019 views that there was a failure of treatment by a GP when there should have been an earlier referral for assessment, but they were \u201cheavily influenced\u201d by hindsight and outweighed by evidence.<\/p>\n
He said a treatment injury would only have occurred if there had been some departure from an objective standard of appropriate treatment.<\/p>\n
He noted the \u201ccarefully nuanced\u201d views of a neurosurgeon who said with the benefit of hindsight, he would have referred Sanderson for an MRI as early as the first consultation on October 13, 2021 if he had seen her in a neurological outpatient setting.<\/p>\n
Judge Spiller said a treatment injury did not occur where, with the benefit of objective hindsight, a different course of treatment could have yielded a better result.<\/p>\n
ACC was unable to comment at this stage.<\/p>\n
Tracy Neal is a Nelson-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She was previously RNZ\u2019s regional reporter in Nelson-Marlborough and has covered general news, including court and local government for the Nelson Mail.<\/p>\n
Join the NZ Herald\u2019s Open Justice team for Case by Case<\/a>, a video and podcast series examining the disputes and decisions making headlines across New Zealand. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cShe was taken far too soon and left an immeasurable hole in our hearts,\u201d Maunder said. The doctors\u2019…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":633671,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[59784,310505,3595,2741,1349,634,15258,111,43,139,69,1523,38606,310506,2766],"class_list":["post-633670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-acc","tag-alecia","tag-by","tag-claim","tag-court","tag-death","tag-injury","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-over","tag-rejected","tag-sandersons","tag-treatment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=633670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633670\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/633671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=633670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=633670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=633670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}