How have the courts in BC dealt with the case of subarachnoid haemorrhage?

In Borglund v. Fraser Valley Health Region et al, 2006 BCSC 1338, the plaintiff presented at the emergency department three times complaining of headache and vomiting before he was referred to a neurologist who diagnosed the plaintiff with a ruptured intracerebral aneurysm. The first two treating doctors were distracted by the plaintiff’s report of an assault involving a blow to the head and, associating the headache with the assault, failed to diagnose subarachnoid haemorrhage. Brown J. considered the critical issue to be the history taken by the emergency room doctors. In focussing on the assault, the doctors failed to obtain pertinent information regarding onset and intensity of the headache which would have alerted them to the problem. The doctors failed to ask the necessary questions to rule out a serious underlying cause. The judge found that the information was available because it was obtained from the patient by the neurologist several days later. If the doctors had asked sufficient questions to elicit the information, it would have been obtained and appropriate investigation would have occurred. The case then revolved around causation.