Its a terrible tragedy for the wee boy and family.
There are very few cases coming through the doors (i believe) that GPs and younger doctors just do not have the experience. They need to be made aware of the symptoms - weight loss, lethargy, increased fluid consumption and bed wetting and vomiting. GP's could easily have blood glucose monitors in their desk. One quick finger prick could save a lot of time and suffering.
To give some people a idea of how time can pass without diagnosis, our toddler was diagnosed as a 19 month toddler. He had been unwell for over a couple months (pale, not eating, sleeping, drinking heaps, nappies saturated, losing weight) and then desperately unwell for 2-3 weeks and we could smell keytones on him. We were back and fore to the GP to no avail (teething, etc....) The night he was diagnosed we had been to A&E, again to no avail. The duty doctor seemed unconcerned saying she would take some blood and had us wait around for 3 hours with nothing done before I said we would go home and watch him. However we were back 3 hours later due to him vomiting. The other doctor then on duty picked up on this straight away saying our boy was very sick. He was swiftly transferred to intensive care where he stayed for almost a week.
I reckon he was unwell for over 3-4 months, but cannot remember exactly now.
We called the GP (circa 45-50 years old) up afterwards and told him the outcome, he was absolutely amazed, stating he would never of thought it was diabetes.
RJM