Coronavirus: Lockdown inflicts backlog on sick kids

Victorian children suffering congenital heart disease are missing crucial appointments and procedures because measures have limited patient numbers.

Kimberley Jaskolski with her daughter Adelina. Picture: David Geraghty

Victorian children suffering congenital heart disease are missing crucial appointments and procedures because measures designed to stop the spread of the coronavirus are limiting patient numbers.

Fearful parents have warned there is a growing backlog of cases at the Royal Children’s Hospital’s cardiology department, withsome being told they will have to wait at least a year before their sick child can get an appointment.

It follows the death of four ­babies with heart problems in ­Adelaide last month, with it appearing South Australian health authorities made no effort to fly the infants to Melbourne to receive urgent surgery that could have prevented their deaths.

Kimberley Jaskolski’s daughter Adelina, 5, underwent a heart transplant shortly before her second birthday after being diagnosed with a type of cardiomyopathy. Forced to cancel an appointment earlier in the year because she was told she couldn’t bring her eight-month-old baby, Ms Jaskolski said her daughter was now months overdue for a scheduled four-yearly biopsy.

“I’m just over not knowing if everything is fine,” she said. “She [Adelina] may look fine and be growing fine and gaining weight, but it doesn’t mean we know what’s going on inside her heart.”

The family lives in Shepparton, 190km north of Melbourne, where local hospitals cannot perform the paediatric ECG and echocardiogram that Adelina requires. “This is just frustrating because of all the other kids who aren’t being seen there’s a backlog, a major backlog because of COVID,” she said.

A RCH spokeswoman said several strategies had been introduced to ensure the safety of patients, parents and staff during the pandemic, including restructuring onsite appointments to ensure waiting rooms were not overcrowded. “The RCH has consistently applied the government’s directions with regard to clinical appointments and elective surgery to ensure patients received their care and treatment in line with their clinical need,” she said.

“No urgent or emergency cases were ever delayed.”

It was revealed on Tuesday that four babies had died at Adelaide’s Women’s and Children’s Hospital after they were unable to be flown to Melbourne for specialist cardiac surgery no longer offered in the state. The usual practice is for babies with heart conditions to be retrieved from Adelaide by Victorian doctors and flown to Melbourne under medical supervision.

As of Thursday night, SA Health was unable to say whether it had lodged such a request to do so with the four infants, or whether SA authorities had assumed that the Victorian lockdown meant surgeons could not enter SA.

SA’s Salaried Medical Officers Association chief industrial office Bernadette Mulholland said this week she had been told the Melbourne lockdown had prevented the Victorian surgeons from helping the babies. The RCH spokeswoman denied the hospital had been alerted to the condition of the babies, saying it would not refuse any interstate requests for medical assistance. “Services remain available in Victoria for the transfer of paediatric patients in a COVID-safe manner where needed and this has been the case for RCH throughout the pandemic.”

The Australian asked SA Health on Thursday whether SA Health or Adelaide’s Women’s and Children’s Hospital made a decision the babies could not be retrieved in Adelaide by Victorian doctors. SA Health provided the following statement. “The Chief Medical Officer is conducting a review into circumstances around the treatment of the four babies … including whether COVID-19 and related restrictions had any impact upon their care.”