Coronial
SAhospital

Coroner's Finding: SOMMERVILLE Adam

Deceased

Adam Sommerville

Demographics

73y, male

Date of death

2016-06-29

Finding date

2020-05-21

Cause of death

metastatic small cell lung cancer and sepsis

AI-generated summary

A 73-year-old man with metastatic small cell lung cancer and sepsis died in Royal Adelaide Hospital while in prison custody. He had been sentenced in May 2015 and received appropriate oncology care including chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and palliative care both in prison health services and at the Royal Adelaide Hospital. His non-parole period was reduced due to his poor health prognosis. The coroner found that care provided by SA Prison Health Service and the hospital was appropriate. While his partner raised concerns about prison conditions, these were not substantiated. The death resulted from natural progression of advanced cancer with superimposed sepsis, and no clinical management failures were identified.

AI-generated summary and tagging — may contain inaccuracies; refer to original finding for legal purposes. Report an inaccuracy.

Specialties

oncologyradiation oncologypalliative careinfectious diseases

Drugs involved

buprenorphineamoxicillincav chemotherapymorphinehaloperidol

Clinical conditions

metastatic small cell lung cancersepsisstage 2 bowel cancerischaemic heart diseasehypertensionasthmahyperlipidaemiagastric refluxchest infectionclostridium difficile diarrhoea

Procedures

chemotherapyradiotherapyprophylactic cranial irradiationpalliative radiotherapy

Contributing factors

  • advanced metastatic cancer with progression despite treatment
  • sepsis
  • clostridium difficile infection
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