By T.J. Aulds

The Daily News  

Published February 23, 2009

TEXAS CITY — The hospital caring for a 15-year-old Texas City boy who died as a result of a meningitis infection delayed reporting the teen’s condition to the county’s health district as required by law, health district officials confirmed. 

D’Andre Jashaad “D.J.” Alexander died Feb. 14 at a Houston hospital after being treated for almost a week at Mainland Medical Center with meningitis-like symptoms. 

Meanwhile, officials with Mainland Medical Center in Texas City, who in two separate interviews with The Daily News at first denied they suspected Alexander had meningitis, promised the county health district they would review their internal policies and procedures when it comes to timely and accurate reporting of possible infectious diseases that could lead to a public health risk, a health district spokesman said. 

State laws require suspected cases of meningitis to be reported immediately to the local health district. The Galveston County Health District was not informed of Alexander’s condition until two days after he died. Even then, that notification came not from the hospital, but from the school nurse at La Marque Middle School where the teen was a student. 

Darcus Alexander, the teen’s father, has said his son complained he had a major headache, was constantly sick to his stomach and kept turning off the lights in his father’s home. Classic symptoms of meningitis include headaches, nausea and sensitivity to light. 

Alexander said his ex-wife had taken D.J. to the hospital’s emergency room after he displayed the same symptoms the week before and was sent home with “some medicine of some type.” 

After keeping the teen from school on Feb. 9, Alexander and the boy’s mother took D.J. to Mainland Medical Center’s emergency room again. It was there that the boy’s father said emergency room personnel told him they suspected he might have a meningitis infection. 

After several days at Mainland Medical, the boy’s health deteriorated and he was taken by ambulance to Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston. 

At the Houston hospital, doctors told the boy’s parents “he was brain-dead,” Darcus Alexander said. 

D.J.’s death was ruled by the Harris County Medical Examiner as brain herniation secondary to meningitis. 

Galveston County Health District spokesman Kurt Koopmann said Alexander’s death would be classified as meningitis-related. 

At the request of Mainland Medical Center, hospital officials met with health district officials on Wednesday to discuss the hospital’s reporting process. 

“During that meeting we emphasized the need for prompt reporting,” Koopmann said. “Our primary concern is public health, which is why we encourage timely and accurate reporting.” 

Koopmann said, in the case of Alexander, “It appeared the reporting was late.” 

Officials at the hospital, the county’s only working hospital outside of the limited operations at the University of Texas Medical Branch, told the health district they were reviewing reporting procedures in light of the Alexander case. 

The hospital, meanwhile, declined to answer questions from The Daily News, 

“Mainland Medical Center is working in cooperation with the Galveston County Health District and providing any necessary and appropriate information to county officials,” spokeswoman Deborah Beverly said in a prepared statement e-mailed to The Daily News. “To protect the privacy of the patient and his family, all other information will be considered confidential in accordance with federal law.” 

Funeral services are scheduled for Tuesday at Bay Area Funeral Home in Texas City. 

The teen’s death wasn’t the only case of meningitis or suspected meningitis at Mainland Medical Center. There have been two other cases that were at least suspected to be meningitis within the last nine days, health district officials confirmed. 

In each of those cases —the death of a 1-year-old Hitchcock boy in Mainland Medical Center’s emergency room and a Santa Fe woman admitted to the hospital last week — the health district was alerted by school nurses in Hitchcock and Santa Fe after family members reported possible meningitis. The health district has no record of the hospital reporting either case, Koopmann confirmed. 

The infant’s death has since been initially determined to be staph-related, Koopmann said. The health district is awaiting tests results on the Santa Fe woman, who was still in the hospital on Friday. 

Koopmann stressed that the health district doesn’t believe there is a meningitis outbreak in the county. 

He added this is the time of the year that meningitis cases are more heavily reported.