Aishwarya’s parents speak for first time since coroner’s report

The father of seven-year-old Morley girl Aishwarya Aswath says his daughter should have been saved at Perth Children’s Hospital.

Speaking publicly for the first time since deputy coroner Sarah Linton handed down her findings into Aishwarya’s death at the hospital in April 2021, Aswath Chavittupara and her mother Prasitha Sasidharan reiterated their calls for a royal commission into Western Australia’s hospital system.

The parents of Aishwarya Aswath, Aswath Chavittupara and Prasitha Sasidharan, want a royal commission into WA’s hospital system.Credit: Nine News Perth

Aswath also suggested WA Health Director General David Russell-Weisz should step down and a “new captain” be picked.

Linton’s report, handed down on Friday, said Aishwarya may have had a small chance of surviving the sepsis that was ravaging her body had she received care earlier than the 90 minutes it took for her to be pushed through the emergency department.

The report did not make adverse findings against any single nurse or doctor on duty that night but delivered scathing criticisms of the hospital’s resourcing and record-keeping, which Linton said diminished any chance Aishwarya had of surviving.

Aswath was visibly shaken by the report, which he said the couple did not have the courage to read through completely.

However, he was resolute in that the findings vindicated his family’s recollection of that night’s events which two previous inquiries – one run internally by WA Health and the other run by a panel of independent medical exports – did not.

“Every mother should be cherishing their children’s achievements ... but I am holding my daughter’s death certificate and inquest report”

Prasitha Sasidharan

Aswath said any chance to save his daughter should have been taken.

“They shouldn’t have mentioned a small chance or a big chance; a chance is a chance,” he said.

“I say this with 100 per cent confidence that, as a father, I know my daughter better than all of these people put together.

“There was a chance they could have saved Aishwarya, and they should have saved Aishwarya.”

The report made five recommendations to improve hospital resourcing, record-keeping and protection for staff during medical investigations.

Prasitha called on the government to act on the recommendations.

“As a mother, every mother should be cherishing their children’s achievements and share their children’s happiness, but I am holding my daughter’s death certificate and inquest report,” she said.

“I’m just asking the authorities, please implement those recommendations if they think that will help, and please make sure that another mother [doesn’t have] to go through the same thing.”

Staffing levels were at the ratio set by the hospital that night, but Linton found that level was not sufficient.

Aswath started a petition calling on the McGowan government to hold a royal commission into WA’s health system in October, having called for one since February last year.

He reiterated these calls on Monday.

“This is one of the reasons why I filed a petition to calling for a royal commission because we don’t want another incident,” he said.

Russell-Weisz said did not directly answer a question about whether he should continue in his role as boss of WA Health but said he “naturally respected their views”.

“As I’ve said today, I cannot begin to understand the grief and the pain they’re going through but what I can say is when this happened, there was a root cause analysis, and then I commissioned an independent inquiry from an independent body,” he said.

“There were 30 recommendations, many of which are now completed and underway and we now have the coroner’s recommendations, which I am committed to, and I don’t resolve from taking the hard decisions and seeing these very, very difficult and challenging times.”

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