The following correction was printed in the Guardian's Corrections and clarifications column, Friday 14 August 2009

In the article below about the inquest into the death of Jasvir Kaur Gill, a Leicester woman with meningitis who was misdiagnosed with swine flu, we said that during Mrs Gill's illness her husband phoned NHS Direct and was told to obtain the antiviral drug Tamiflu for her. The call was actually to Leicestershire County and Rutland Out of Hours Service. This error sprang from incorrect information given to a news agency covering the inquest.

A man whose mother died of meningitis days after being misdiagnosed with swine flu has called on doctors to pay more heed to other illnesses when treating patients.

Jasvir Kaur Gill, 48, a mother of three from Leicester, began suffering from a sore throat and vomiting during the evening of Saturday 1 August.

She was told to take Tamiflu after a telephone diagnosis, but 12 hours later she suffered a heart attack and was taken to hospital.

She died without regaining consciousness, four days later.

An inquest, which opened today, heard how her death was caused by meningococcal septicaemia, or blood poisoning caused by meningitis.

After the hearing, her son Sukhvinder Gill, 25, said: "We said to the doctors in the hospital, everything these days seems to be about swine flu.

"You've got a sore throat, they tell you to take Tamiflu; you've got a headache, they tell you to take Tamiflu.

"Everyone seems to be swine flu, swine flu, swine flu. What she had were also symptoms of meningitis, but they didn't think of that."

Gill, an estate agent, said the family were "just trying to get by" but were full of questions over his mother's death.

He said he hoped her funeral on Friday would allow the family to start moving on.

"I don't feel angry yet. At the moment I just miss my mum. The cause of death is not a problem, it's just wondering if it could have been caught earlier.

"The doctor said it might not have made a difference, but we don't know that. If she had 12 more hours, they could have put antibiotics in her, which might have helped."

At the inquest, Gill told Leicester city coroner, Catherine Mason, that his mother started complaining of a sore throat but then vomited repeatedly throughout the night and at 5am, prompting her husband to call NHS Direct.

Gill said that, following conversations with both his father and mother, they were told to pick up some Tamiflu.

He told the inquest: "My dad went to the Royal [Leicester Royal Infirmary], and gave her the first dose.

"He gave her the morning tablet but she continued to get worse and worse through the morning."

At around noon that day, Mrs Gill was having difficulty breathing, so the family called 999, the inquest heard.

Gill said the paramedic who attended left after five minutes after prescribing paracetamol.

"She checked my mum's throat, used a stethoscope on her chest, and said everything was clear," he told the inquest.

"She stayed there about five minutes, if that, and said just take paracetamol and water and she will be fine."

At around 5pm, Mrs Gill began coughing uncontrollably and then collapsed, suffering a heart attack.

Once again, the family called 999 and were told to carry out CPR while waiting for the ambulance.

The inquest heard that Mrs Gill's heart stopped several times in the ambulance on the way to hospital, where she was taken to the critical care unit and put on a ventilator.

She did not improve or regain consciousness and died on Thursday.

Gill told the hearing that on Tuesday doctors believed her illness could have been swine flu, legionnaires' disease, or meningitis.

"The next day they confirmed that it was meningitis," he said.

Coroner Mason confirmed the cause of death was meningococcal septicaemia.

She said: "Quite clearly, further inquiries need to be carried out in relation to this death."

She adjourned the inquest with a date to be fixed.

A two-year-old girl died of suspected meningitis last week after being incorrectly diagnosed with swine flu.

The Meningitis Trust and other health charities have warned that people may be misdiagnosed with swine flu when they were actually suffering from the brain disease.

Several symptoms, including fever, muscle pain and headaches, are common to both conditions.