State blame game after couple loses baby amid border row

The heartbreaking death of an unborn twin has left a northern NSW couple devastated while bureaucrats pass the buck over the confusion surrounding Queensland’s closed border. The young mum is now desperately hanging on to get her other child to 28 weeks.

• Thirteen new COVID cases in NSW
• WHO bypassed Wuhan in hunt for COVID origin

THE heartbreaking death of an unborn twin has left a northern NSW couple devastated while bureaucrats pass the buck over the confusion surrounding Queensland’s closed border.

Kimberley and Scott Brown, from Ballina on NSW’s north coast, were sent to Sydney on August 13 by doctors at Lismore Base Hospital so Kimberley could have surgery, after their twin girls developed a rare condition, even though their preferred hospital was in Brisbane.

The babies needed urgent surgery in utero to help the blood flow to one twin.

It is a highly specialised treatment available at the Mater Hospital in Brisbane. Going there would have been faster, and involved less travel and stress.

Kimberley and Scott Brown. Kimmy was flown by the Royal Flying Doctor Service on Thursday to the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney.

But Lismore medics advised the Browns to fly south because of the paperwork involved to get through the Queensland border, which closed that day, the twins’ grandfather Allan Watt said.

Instead of a two-hour drive to the Mater, they waited 16 hours to be flown by CareFlight to Sydney.

A scan at Sydney’s Royal Prince Alfred Hospital on Thursday revealed the baby had died at 26 weeks, and the couple are now in a desperate fight to ensure the little girl’s twin sister survives.

Scanning would have been done daily, because of the seriousness of the condition, and medical experts say stress and delay were compounding factors.

“They did what they could but she lost one of the bubs yesterday,” Mr Watt said on Friday. “She’s really worried about the second bub, she is still in the womb, and they are trying to hold on to 28 weeks.

“They thought they had a better chance in the womb than bringing them out.”

The woman waiting 16 hours for a care flight from Lismore Base Hospital.

The baby’s father did not want to comment when contacted by The Saturday ­Telegraph.

The tragedy has NSW and Queensland health officials at odds over border rules.

Northern NSW Local Health District chief executive Wayne Jones said the couple would have had to go into quarantine north of the border, but the Queensland government says they would have been waved through.

“While the preferred location for the family to give birth was at a hospital in Brisbane, under the Queensland Border Direction at the time, the woman and her partner would have had to quarantine in a government hotel for 14 days, at their own expense, prior the procedure,” Mr Jones said.

The couple from Ballina are now in a desperate fight to save the unborn twin.

“Following discussion with Royal Prince Alfred specialists in Sydney, the woman travelled to Sydney for the procedure, where she would not be required to quarantine.”

But Queensland’s chief health officer Dr Jeannette Young said the twins’ mum would not have required an exemption from the coronavirus cross-border travel ban.

“Anyone can come across a border in an emergency,” she said. “So the police do not stop ambulances, they do not stop life-flight helicopters.”

Queensland provided emergency services to the northern part of NSW and that had not changed during the pandemic.

Dr Young said she could not “go into specifics” of the case, adding it was “private” for the family in a “time of grief”.

MORE NEWS

Childcare worker turned heroin delivery driver avoids jail

Trinity Grammar School teacher charged over child grooming

NSW prison guard suspended over alleged inmate jail romance

Prime Minister Scott Morrison demanded an explanation. “There would need to be an extraordinary explanation in relation to (why) someone wouldn’t be able to get medical treatment in this circumstance,” he said at The Daily Telegraph’s Bush Summit on Friday.

“Any Australian, wherever they are in need of medical treatment should be able to access it, particularly in an emergency, in any Australian hospital, whatever state they’re in.”

Scott Morrison addressed the baby’s death in Cooma on Friday. Picture: Rohan Kelly

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk denied her government was preventing interstate medical cases entering.

Mr Morrison said now the country had found itself in a position with “too much inconsistency” between different border arrangements, the federal government was endeavouring to get “some principles”. On behalf of Australians we’ve got to get this worked out,” he said.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, who this month said Queensland hospitals were for Queenslanders, said the girl’s death was a tragedy, but denied her government was preventing urgent interstate cases from accessing medical treatment across the border.

“I think we’re very very compassionate in this state and … if there is someone that needs emergency care, if they need a helicopter to fly them to one of our hospitals, that will happen,” she said.

Originally published as State blame game after couple loses baby amid border row