Judge rules in Dr Margaret Swenson’s favour in Supreme Court

A local doctor has finally had her name cleared after a long battle through the legal system over a prescription in 2014.

Moranbah GP Margaret Swenson.

A Moranbah doctor has been cleared of wrongdoing after a decade-long legal battle over an antibiotic prescription.

Judge Crow ruled in Dr Margaret Swenson’s favour in the Rockhampton Supreme Court on February 28 over the incident that occurred in 2014.

Sue Filmalter was suing Dr Swenson for negligence, breach of contract and breach of the Australian Consumer Law (Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth)), alleging she was inappropriately prescribed an antibiotic which caused an allergic reaction.

She told the court the reaction led to extreme photosensitivity and was a cause or contributing factor to her development of cerebral vasculitis which led to a stroke in 2017.

The 51-year-old attended the Moranbah Medical Centre on February 6, 2014 where she had a consultation with Dr Swenson who had only commenced her practice as a general practitioner on 3 February, 2014.

Mrs Filmalter alleged she told Dr Swenson that she had an allergy to penicillin, sulphur, niacin and some other antibiotic which she did not know the name of, while Dr Swenson said Mrs Filmalter said she had suffered from an allergy only to penicillin and sulphur.

Further testing was undertaken and on February 8, 2014, Dr Swenson called Mrs Filmalter where she said she explained to Mrs Filmalter her results were suggestive of a mild upper urinary tract infection and that she was worried that it could turn into something more without the intervention of antibiotics.

“So my concern was we had a patient that had been unwell since November, and had not sought any treatment until February, had long-term known renal calculi, that had expressed that she’d been having nausea, she had been having intermittent fevers, she had been feeling unwell,” said Dr Swenson.

“It was affecting her life.”

She said with the pain getting worse she was concerned Mrs Filmalter could get really ill because of her reluctance to go to hospital.

Dr Swenson said she then explained to Mrs Filmalter it was unlikely there would be a reaction to the antibiotic norfloxacin as it was a different class of drug, but if there was a reaction she should attend hospital.

On February 9, Mrs Filmalter took one tablet of the antibiotic and began experiencing tingling which she brushed aside before taking a second dose.

Dr Margaret Swenson prescribed the antibiotic that cause an allergic reaction..

Judge Crow said it was perplexing she would brush that aside given her history and discussions with Dr Swenson.

After taking the second tablet, she said she began feeling flushed, very hot, short of breath, and had a burning sensation over her back and arms at which point she and her husband drove to Mackay Base Hospital.

Throughout February, Mrs Filmalter said she began experiencing skin sensitivity to light of all kinds including sunlight as well as light from laptops and phones. She said this has persisted for more than a decade.

She also claimed the allergic reaction to the norfloxacin was a cause or contributing factor to the development of cerebral vasculitis and a stroke she suffered in January 2017.

Judge Crow noted a number of instances where he rejected Mrs Filmalter’s version of events including the claim her husband was at the initial appointment with Dr Swenson and that she was in intensive care for three days due to a previous allergic reaction.

Mrs Filmalter accepted she had a poor memory as a result of her stroke in 2017, and she was recorded as having multiple cognitive deficits.

Judge Crow said where Mr Filmalter’s evidence conflicted with Dr Swenson’s, he would accept Dr Swenson’s evidence in preference to Mrs Filmalter’s evidence.

Expert witness Dr Dickinson expressed the opinion Dr Swenson was entitled to rely on information about the drugs Mrs Filmalter specifically mentioned she was allergic to in the circumstances when medical records could not be obtained in a timely fashion. In this case the records were located in South Africa.

He expressed Mrs Filmalter did have signs suggestive of a urinary tract infection, and it was reasonable to prescribe the different class of antibiotic as the risk of serious consequences flowing from an untreated, complicated urinary tract infection was too great not to treat promptly.

Judge Crow accepted those opinions.

Judge Crow concluded that while Mrs Filmalter had shown on the balance of probabilities she had suffered from a minor allergic reaction to the norfloxacin, she had not shown that the ingestion of those two tablets of norfloxacin caused any type of photosensitive illness, nor her stroke in 2017.