A doctor “joked he needed to finish dessert” before seeing a young patient who later died of meningococcal disease, a coroner has heard. Zachary Gravatt, 22, died of meningococcal disease at Auckland City Hospital on July 8, 2009. An inquest is currently being held into his death. In 2011, Coroner Brandt Shortland found the young medical student was let down by the system he was hoping to one day join. Auckland City Hospital was struggling to handle a flu epidemic at the time, Coroner Shortland found, and Gravatt wasn’t diagnosed in a “timely fashion” because of systemic failures. The Auckland District Health Board (ADHB) acknowledged that with different treatment it was possible Gravatt could have survived. It issued an apology and a financial settlement to the Gravatt family in 2013.
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