Darwin barrister Mark Thomas forced to book own flight to Sydney for emergency surgery

A prominent NT barrister says he was sent home from Royal Darwin Hospital with a prescription for gastritis before flying to Sydney for a second opinion where he was rushed into emergency surgery.

Barrister Mark Thomas was forced to book his own commercial flight to Sydney for life saving surgery after being sent home from Royal Darwin Hospital. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

A prominent barrister who was forced to catch a commercial flight to Sydney for lifesaving surgery after he was sent home from Royal Darwin Hospital following a “litany of failures” says he will now likely leave the Territory as a result.

Mark Thomas, who has practised law in the NT since taking up a position as senior Crown prosecutor in 2007, said if he had not taken matters into his own hands he would probably be dead.

Mr Thomas said he drove to RDH in the early hours of October 18 after suffering extreme pain in his abdomen where he “could barely move and was breathing very rapidly and calling out”.

Mr Thomas said his condition stabilised about 5am after he was given pain killers and he waited in the emergency room until dawn where a doctor diagnosed him with gastritis and sent him away with a prescription.

But Mr Thomas — who appeared as counsel assisting in a Coronial inquest into the death of a woman who died of sepsis in Nhulunbuy in 2011 — said he “instinctively felt that the diagnosis was wrong”.

“(I felt) I had better get to an interstate hospital ASAP, and if I did not my life was at risk,” he said.

Mr Thomas said after speaking to his medico brother and his own GP, he decided to catch the next flight to Sydney where his blood was taken at Royal North Shore Hospital two days later.

He said the blood test revealed his C-reactive protein level was 300 times what it should have been and he was rushed into emergency surgery on October 21 to have his gallbladder removed.

“The surgeons advised that the gallbladder was about to rupture on the day of operation,” he said.

“It was gangrenous, full of gallstones which had caused blockage, dilated and ‘very nasty’.

“The operation to remove the gall bladder occurred just in time.”

Barrister Mark Thomas said ‘I do not want to go back to that hospital ever again’ after being sent home from RDH in October. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

Mr Thomas said he later discovered his C-reactive protein level had never been tested at RDH, which along with a failure to apply sepsis protocols or conduct an ultrasound “added to the litany of failures”.

“I was never so concerned at being in a hospital, namely in RHD, in my life, the contrast with RNSH was stunning — by the way, I’m extremely grateful to that hospital because I think they saved my life,” he said.

“I have no doubt that if I had taken (RDH’s) advice, as most people would have, I would have probably died due to sepsis on the day I was operated on.

“I’m concerned for the ordinary person who wasn’t in a position that I was with a brother who’s a doctor and also my experience in Coronial matters that the ordinary person would have, I think, probably died on the Saturday.

“That fills me with concern that the hospital’s standards are seriously troubling, at least from what I saw — I do not want to go back to that hospital ever again.”

Mr Thomas said he remained “strongly affected” by the experience and felt he could no longer continue to live in the city he had called home for more than 15 years.

“I just sensed that at the time and at the end of the night that my life was seriously in danger and that turned out to be correct,” he said.

A spokeswoman for NT Health claimed the department was “unable” to comment on any of Mr Thomas’s concerns “due to privacy” without further explanation.

“To guide clinicians to identify and manage sepsis, NT Health has processes in place at its facilities which are audited twice yearly,” she said, while inviting patients to provide “feedback” online.

Originally published as Darwin barrister Mark Thomas forced to book own flight to Sydney for emergency surgery