THE mother of a woman who died after waiting 15 hours before she was diagnosed with meningitis is planning to sue Oxfordshire’s health service.

Lorraine Lewis said she would fight until her dying day to get compensation for her and her grandson following the death of Shazia Ahmed.

Ms Ahmed, 25, from Falcon Close, Blackbird Leys, died in February at Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital, five days after contracting the disease.

The mother-of-one and her family had called out-of-hours doctors twice to get help before she was eventually taken to the hospital.

Last week, Oxfordshire Primary Care Trust and Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals Trust admitted earlier diagnosis might have led to a different outcome and said they were deeply sorry.

Ms Lewis, who now cares for her daughter’s six-year-old son, Kaishaan, said: “I’m going to sue. I’ve been to see my solicitor.

“It’s so I can secure Kaishaan’s future, her little boy, because he’s lost his mum and some compensation for me because I’ve lost my daughter.

“Life goes on but it isn’t going on for me. It’s at a standstill and I can’t face going to work.

“I feel I need to be at home with my family and in my comfort zone because I’m worried it’s going to happen to someone else.

“I haven’t got a clue how much I’ll get. How much do you put on a child’s life? She was my baby. It’s also about what she would have done for Kaishaan. All the stuff he’s missing out on, you’ve got to compensate for.

“It’s making something positive out of something negative.”

She added: “I’m going to fight this all the way, if it takes me until I’m 80 years old I will get justice for my daughter and my grandson.”

Ms Lewis believes a catalogue of errors by the two trusts led to her daughter’s death.

She said she took her to the JR’s accident and emergency unit when her condition worsened. She said her daughter was covered in a black-purple rash, was vomiting and had extreme diarrhoea.

Ms Lewis claims she was left without a bed pan and had to be sick in a sink.

Ms Ahmed was eventually diagnosed with the disease and taken to intensive care.

Four days later she suffered a brain haemorrage and had to be placed on life support.

A spokesman for Oxfordshire PCT and a spokesman for the ORH said they had released a joint statement regarding Shazia Ahmed’s death last week.

Both spokesmen said the authorities had nothing additional to say at this point.

eallen@oxfordmail.co.uk