Bridget Klingberg tells Adelaide inquest of her desperate attempts to get answers about daughter Briony’s mystery illness

A HEARTBROKEN mother took her 10-year-old daughter to five doctors in the week before her death. Not one of them diagnosed the common illness that was making the little girl so sick.

Bridget Klingberg leaves the Coroner’s Court after giving evidence about the tragic death of her 10-year-old daughter Briony.

DESPERATE to find out what was making her 10-year-old daughter so sick she couldn’t eat, Bridget Klingberg took her to see five different health practitioners over a five-day period.

Not one gave her a definitive diagnosis, instead offering theories that Briony Caitlin Klingberg could have tonsillitis, a viral infection or glandular fever.

On January 18, Briony died at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital. Her illness remained undiagnosed until an autopsy showed the cause of death was multi-organ failure due to overwhelming herpes simplex infection.

Herpes simplex commonly causes cold sores, and it is estimated that around 80 per cent of Australian adults have had the virus.

Her heartbroken mother told Coroner Mark Johns on Wednesday that not one health practitioner gave her a definitive diagnosis.

“Everyone kept sending her home so (I thought) she couldn’t have been that sick,” she told the court.

She said her daughter’s illness got so severe she could not walk, eat food, drink water or urinate.

Counsel assisting the coroner Naomi Kereru said two issues of contention for the inquest would be whether giving her a steroid adversely affected her illness and what testing was requested for a throat swab.

Mrs Klingberg said Briony started to feel unwell on January 11, complaining of a sore throat and a temperature.

She said the following day she vomited about six times and had lost her appetite so she decided to take her to the Woodside GP on January 13.

“He (the general practitioner) thought she had a viral infection and he gave us a prescription for antibiotics,” she said.

“The afternoon was no different, she had some yoghurt but everything hurt to swallow. As the evening went on, we felt we needed to take her somewhere else to get help.”

Mrs Klingberg and her husband drove from their farm in Woodside East to the Women’s and Children’s Hospital emergency department, the inquest heard.

The mother of three said Briony was seen by a triage nurse and a doctor, who both saw “little open sores” on the back of her throat.

She said swabs were taken from her throat ulcers but she was told Briony was well enough to go home after about an hour at the hospital.

On January 14, her condition had not improved and Mrs Klingberg wanted another opinion so she took Briony — who was not sleeping — to the Mt Barker Hospital.

She said general practitioner Dr Christopher Say prescribed her prednisolone — a steroid — and asked her to come back the next morning if her condition had not improved.

Mrs Klingberg said she took her back the following morning and Dr Say told her he believed Briony had improved.

Ms Kereru asked Mrs Klingberg if she argued with Dr Say about making improvements.

Mrs Klingberg replied: “No, that’s not what we do — the doctor knows best and you follow their instructions.”

She said she believed Briony was the same but her temperature had dropped.

On January 15, Mrs Klingberg contacted her family GP, Dr Christopher Heinrich at Health on Kensington, for another opinion.

She told the inquest that Dr Heinrich gave her daughter an injection of antibiotics and ordered a sample of blood be taken for testing.

“He thought it was a major infection — and queried glandular fever,” she said.

She said he called her the next day and told her the blood results “were odd and didn’t seem to make sense”.

Mrs Klingberg said she called him back 90 minutes later because Briony could no longer urinate and he advised her to go straight to the Women’s and Children’s Hospital.

Briony had a seizure in the hospital carpark and was admitted to the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit, where she was treated for multiple organ failure.

She continued to deteriorate and her life support was turned off on January 18.

The inquest continues.