\n Ian Bland, 57, died on April 23 last year after spending more than a week at a King’s Lynn hospital without medicine to treat an infection.\n<\/p>\n
\n An inquest into his death has revealed how Mr Bland did not have access to drugs needed to treat toxoplasmosis \u2013 an infection caused by a parasite \u2013 during an eight-day stay at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital.\n<\/p>\n
\n The Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King’s Lynn (Image: Queen Elizabeth Hospital)\n<\/p>\n
\n A review conducted into the care of Mr Bland, who was diagnosed with HIV in 2004, also identified a lack of understanding at the hospital of how to treat patients with an acute illness and a history of the disease.\n<\/p>\n
\n Norfolk Coroner’s Court heard that Mr Bland, who lived in Wisbech, was admitted to the hospital on April 8 when his landlord called an ambulance after he lost feeling in the right side of his body and could not communicate.\n<\/p>\n
\n He was initially taken to the stroke ward and a CT scan linked his condition to an infection.\n<\/p>\n
\n An MRI scan on April 12 confirmed he had toxoplasmosis but the drugs needed to treat the illness were not available at the hospital.\n<\/p>\n
\n He was subsequently transferred to the infectious diseases unit at Addenbrooke\u2019s Hospital in Cambridge where his \u201cbreathing deteriorated\u201d on the evening before his death.\n<\/p>\n
\n He died at the hospital during the early hours of April 23.\n<\/p>\n
\n Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge (Image: Archant)\n<\/p>\n
\n His medical cause of death was established as aspiration pneumonia caused by cerebral toxoplasmosis, due to human immunodeficiency and virus infection.\n<\/p>\n
\n Concluding his inquest, assistant coroner Christopher Leach said: \u201cIan should have had access to that critical medication at the hospital.\n<\/p>\n
\n “I am satisfied that the cause of Ian’s death was natural … following an infection in his lungs.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cAn MRI showed that he was suffering from an infection caused by a parasite. There was a delay in the administration of the medication due to the unavailability at the pharmacy.\n<\/p>\n
\n Norfolk Coroner’s Court (Image: Newsquest)\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cMr Bland had not been compliant with his HIV medication. Mr Bland was transferred to Addenbrooke\u2019s Hospital where he acquired aspiration pneumonia, deteriorated and died on April 23, 2025.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ian Bland, 57, died on April 23 last year after spending more than a week at a King’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":715387,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[59,90,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-715386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-gb","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=715386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/715387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=715386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=715386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=715386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}