Doctor fined $30k over Miss Dhu’s death

An ER doctor who sent a dying Aboriginal woman in police custody back to her cell after failing to take her temperature has been found guilty of misconduct.

Miss Dhu died slowly and in agony from sepsis that two doctors failed to detect. Picture: News Corp

AN emergency department doctor who failed to take the temperature of a dying Aboriginal woman in police custody, and wrote in his notes that she had “behavioural issues” before sending her back to her cell, has been fined $30,000 by the Medical Board of Australia.

The 22-year-old woman, known for cultural reasons as Miss Dhu, died slowly and in agony from sepsis that two doctors failed to detect when police took her to the South Hedland Health Campus on August 2 and August 3, 2014. An inquest heard her life may have been saved if one of the two doctors who saw her on successive days had detected this.

Dr Vafa Naderi, the second doctor to see Miss Dhu, was found guilty of professional misconduct in the State Administrative Tribunal of WA on Friday.

The written decision on Dr Naderi sets out how he failed to do things that could have alerted him that Miss Dhu was seriously ill. He did not read the triage nurse’s notation recording Miss Dhu’s heart rate as 126 beats per minute, up from 72 bpm the day before. Dr Naderi also failed to take her temperature “in the presence of significant changes in Ms Dhu’s vital signs and the fact that she was noted to be warm and tachycardic (the medical term for a heart rate over 100 bpm), which were indications she might have been febrile”. He also failed to order a chest X-ray despite a triage nurse’s findings of shortness of breath and grunting respirations and despite it being her second presentation at the hospital with chest pain.

Miss Dhu’s grandmother Carol Roe, who raised her, told the Weekend Australian she was disappointed Dr Naderi would continue to be allowed to work as a doctor.

Miss Dhu was disbelieved and treated inhumanely in her last days in the police watch house in the iron ore town of South Hedland, 1600km north of Perth. An inquest into Miss Dhu’s death heard the officer in charge, Rick Bond, told other officers she was faking and he said to her: “You’re a f--king junkie ... you will f--king sit this out”. Mr Bond left the police force before the inquest was held.

The written decision on Dr Vafa Naderi sets out how he failed to do things that would have alerted him that Miss Dhu was seriously ill. Picture: News Corp

When police took Miss Dhu to hospital the first time, one police officer told a doctor her pain got worse when she learned she would spend the night in custody. A nurse rolled her eyes at Miss Dhu. But Miss Dhu was not exaggerating her pain to get out of custody. She was less than 48 hours from death. She was a domestic violence victim with a rib cracked by her boyfriend Deon Ruffin two months earlier when he grabbed her by the jumper and threw her from over his head onto the floor behind him. That broken rib had become infected. She had staphylococcal septicaemia and pneumonia.

A screen grab from CCTV footage of Miss Dhu in South Hedland Police station. Picture: News Corp

The third time police took Miss Dhu to the hospital, at 12.40pm on August 4, a male police officer told the triage nurse: “she is just putting it on, she is faking”. The triage nurse could see immediately that Miss Dhu was in cardiac arrest.

Medical staff rushed her to theatre and began CPR but at 1.39pm she was declared dead.

Miss Dhu had ended up in the cells at the South Hedland police complex because she did not pay a $1000 fine imposed on her by the Geraldton Magistrate’s Court.