Man died after refusing treatment and medication (From Daily Echo)

Man died after refusing treatment and medication

3:30pm Thursday 7th February 2013 in News

A HAMPSHIRE man died after his stomach cancer went undiagnosed, an inquest heard.

David Fletcher, 36, of Spitfire End, Winchester, died at Royal Hampshire County Hospital in June 2012.

But a jury ruled out any negligence, returning a verdict of death due to natural causes by majority verdict of ten to two.

Jurors heard that Mr Fletcher refused treatment that would have identified the cancer, such as an endoscopy, declined to take his anti-psychotic medication in his final months and resisted treatment for his liver after entering hospital in May 2012.

Post-mortem examination results showed that the cancer was too advanced to be cured and chemotherapy would have only prolonged his life for weeks or months.

Mr Fletcher moved to Winchester aged eight and attended Sparsholt Primary and Henry Beaufort Secondary schools and Peter Symonds College, but developed mental illness after his first year at Oxford Brookes University in 1995.

His father Michael, of Kingfisher Close, Whitchurch, said: “There was no trouble or problems at all until he went to university. He was bright and very artistic.

“But for ten years or so he was well and we never gave up on him.”