Four children die in one month as Adelaide hospital called ‘second class’

Four children have died in one month at an Adelaide hospital, when their deaths could have been prevented, a hearing has been told.

Four children have died at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital (WCH) in Adelaide after a lack of access to cardiac facilities led a respected doctor to call the facility “a bit second class”.

The four children who died in the past month — one most recently on Friday, have had their deaths blamed on a lack of cardiac services in a South Australian public health services committee hearing, according to the Adelaide Advertiser.

In normal circumstances, the children would have been transferred to Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital to undergo heart surgery — however this is prevented due to the coronavirus situation in the state. The alternative, Westmead Hospital in Sydney, chooses patients on a case-by-case basis.

Obstetrician and Associate Professor John Svigos told the hearing the WCH had gone from being a world-class hospital to “a bit second class”.

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WCH Alliance member Prof John Svigos said the hospital ha become ‘a bit second class’. Pic Tait Schmaal.

Bernadette Mulholland said it was the view of clinicians sine of the children’s deaths were preventable. Picture: Mark Brake / AAP

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The hospital’s staff had presented the case for having paediatric cardiac services at the hospital last year, but were rejected by an independent report, which concluded there wouldn’t be enough cases to keep surgeon’s skill levels up.

The Advertiser said South Australia remains the only Australian state without paediatric cardiac facilities. Prof Svigos told the committee three children had died within the last month due to a lack of access to the services.

Bernadette Mulholland, the South Australian Salaried Medical Officers Association chief industrial officer then told the hearing a fourth had died last Friday. She said she’d been told some of the deaths were preventable.

“If we had that (cardiac) service here in SA that would prevent, and this is the clinicians’ view, the deaths of some of these children,” Ms Mulholland said.

She warned the staff had been left burnt out and demoralised.

Both witnesses said the families and staff had been “besides themselves” after not being able to save the children’s lives.

Prof Svigos said “there are consequences” to any delays or decisions to cut health services.

“Particularly in our current COVID situation where the usual process of referral to the Melbourne cardiac unit is no longer tenable and referral to Sydney is on a case-by-case basis,” he said.

“I’ve been given to understand that the Women’s and Children’s Hospital has sadly seen the deaths of three babies in the past four weeks who were unable to be transferred, who almost certainly would have benefited from on-site cardiac services.

“I shall leave it to you to imagine the profound effect of these deaths on the parents, their families and the dedicated medical and nursing staff dealing with these tragedies.

“The WCH Alliance would humbly ask how many more deaths of babies and young children will the community and staff be forced to endure?”

Children are dying in hospital over lack of access to paediatric cardiac facilities.

He said SA Health has budgeted $5 million per year for transferring sick children, but said creating a specialised unit at the WCH would cost $6 million to establish and $1 million a year to run — making it cost neutral within two years.

“If we are not self sufficient we are going to run into this problem again — it would be crazy to think we are not going to have another pandemic at some stage,” he said.

The WCH released a statement saying the hospital provides the highest quality care to all its patients and “South Australian children will always have access to the health services they need.”

“To ensure young South Australians receive the best possible treatment, some patients may need to travel to interstate due to the specialised nature of care they require.

“We transfer our patients who require complex paediatric cardiac surgery to the Royal Children’s Hospital, as it remains the safest option and offers the best care for our children and their families.

“We are working closely with our clinicians to develop a service proposal for the use of ECMO (a cardiac oxygen service) for children in South Australia.

“Paediatric cardiac surgery services are currently under review with the Network’s Board.

“The quality of the services we provide is always our number one priority and South Australian families should rest assured that our hospital continues to provide the safest care for our patients.”