Port Pirie Hospital horror as review ordered into dead baby mix-up

First their miscarried baby was dumped in a “bucket” by hospital staff. Then the wrong body was sent to a funeral home. And no one bothered to inform the parents.

The parents, who have suffered through several miscarriages, were not told about the incident. Picture Dean Martin

The devastated parents of a dead baby are outraged at being kept in the dark about a mix-up with another child’s corpse at a major regional hospital, with their child allegedly left in a medical “bucket”.

SA Health whistleblowers claim the preterm foetus was treated “like rubbish” in Port Pirie Hospital’s mortuary after the mother, Candice Murray, 42, miscarried almost four months into her pregnancy in January last year.

Hospital chiefs apologised as a high-level internal inquiry was this week ordered into blunders that sparked the “mix up” with another dead child.

Internal SA Health documents reveal the wrong body was mistakenly transported to one of the Mid North town’s major funeral parlours, Meschke Funerals, which is now also reviewing its rules.

Distraught staff, some of whom were offered counselling, complained to management about poor identification and wrong labels on a “bucket”.

Officials denied the baby was uncovered or inappropriately labelled when placed in medically appropriate storage after transport from Adelaide, where the mother was treated.

Candice Murray, 42, who had a miscarriage at the hospital last year, and was unaware of circumstances surrounding the event, pictured at her Port Pirie home with partner of 18 years, Shane Roberts, 45, and one of their children, Aidan, 3. Picture: Dean Martin

Despite being recorded as a patient incident, sources claimed the errors had not been fully dislosed to the local health network’s board.

Sources, who declined to be named, also alleged no review was undertaken at the time, and no rules changed, amid claims of wider problems at the hospital.

Multiple sources also disputed claims from health chiefs, and the funeral home, that the body was returned within 30 minutes, which was further contradicted in a formal, written complaint.

Speaking from their Port Pirie West home on Monday, a shocked mother-of-five Ms Murray and her partner of 18 years Shane Roberts, 45, expressed disgust at how their baby was treated.

Ms Murray, a grandmother of two who has had 13 miscarriages, wept as she told how she was not informed about the mistakes after losing her child at 17 weeks.

“It’s like I lost a piece of me that day – I was so disappointed,” said Ms Murray, a disability pensioner whose children are aged between three and 23.

“I’m just disgusted they could do that. I can’t believe they would do it that way.

“I think (the hospital) should change their ways.

“It is so much worse than how you would treat an animal.”

Mr Roberts added: “I am stunned. It’s unbelievable.

“We haven’t been told anything about this.

“They’ve thrown it away like a piece of rubbish.”

Sources said workers were aghast at how the baby was “discarded … like rubbish”.

“Normally when someone passes away they place it in a body bag and then into the morgue on a table,” one said.

Despite no review being undertaken at the time, hospital chiefs this week apologised while the Health Minister ordered a high-level review. Picture: Dean Martin

“It’s all labelled, all paperwork filled out. How they didn’t do that process for this baby I don’t understand.

“No label on the bucket, nothing had been done correctly.

“As a parent you wouldn’t want to know that has happened to your child. It’s still a human being.

“It was very disrespectful and careless.”

Internal SA Health documents allege the blunder occurred on the night of Thursday, January 20 last year before the mistake was fixed the following day.

In a complaint to superiors on February 8 last year, a staffer recounted the events “around the deceased fetus (sic)/ child mix up”.

It was circulated among senior management, including the hospital’s then acting chief executive, who confirmed it was recorded as a safety incident but did not dispute its contents.

The staffer, who is not being named, told how problems occurred on the Thursday night after a Meschke Funerals worker came to collect a dead child.

“On arrival (to the morgue) we noticed a bucket place(d) on the racking system and also saw in the mortuary register a section which was filled out ‘baby of (mother)’… with only the attending nurse and orderly’s name in the section,” they wrote.

“Protocol is that a hospital identification sticker (is) placed in the first box of the section as well as a time and date and which area/ward the deceased us from. None of this including the sticker were present.

“Due to the lack of appropriate identification both in the mortuary register and on the bucket in which the fetus (sic) was in, it was assumed that (the body) was to be collected.”

The staffer also wrote that a death certificate was missing. Then the next afternoon, the same staffer wrote that the funeral worker admitted they had the “wrong child” and was returned to the morgue fridge.

“I, along with other (workers), were unaware of the second deceased child within the hospital and therefore led to believe the fetus (sic) within the morgue was the correct (one),” they wrote.

The staffer and the funeral parlour worker then asked a midwife “why there wasn’t the appropriate identification used to label the deceased child”.

The midwife claimed to be unaware of the date or time the baby had died, according to the complaint.

“I’d like to point that … if the proper identification had been used in the mortuary then myself and (the funeral worker) would not have been misinformed,” it read.

“If (workers) had been notified that there was a deceased child on C ward then this mix up further could’ve been prevented.”

A “concerned” Health Minister Chris Picton said while it occured before he was in government, he has ordered SA Health chief executive Dr Robyn Lawrence to “personally review the incident … and to ensure adequate processes are in place to prevent similar issues happening again”.

“Dr Lawrence will also consider whether the hospital made appropriate steps to contact the mother and whether the matter should have been alerted to the hospital’s board or the previous government,” he said.

In a separate statement, Yorke and Northern Local Health Network chief executive Roger Kirchner apologised “for the distress this incident has caused”.

“In an error, a funeral director collected the wrong body from the morgue,” he said.

“The error was quickly identified and the body was returned to the morgue within 30 minutes.”

He denied the body was not properly stored or labelled while he insisted staff followed “medically appropriate” processes.

The body was never in an uncovered container or a bucket, he added.

Meschke Funerals managing director, Toby Connor, also “unreservedly” apologised as he revealed “all internal processes are being reviewed to prevent a transfer error from happening again”.

“We acknowledge this experience is distressing to both the family and staff member involved, and we are deeply sorry for any distress caused to the family,” he said.