Australia: Triple-0 blunder

Ambulance gets wrong address for hurt man (In Australia, 000 is the equivalent of the U.S. 911). This seems to happen a lot. Making it a firing offence for a blundering dispatcher would make it happen a lot less often, I fancy. I note that in a U.S. case the dispatcher was at least suspended

A worker who sliced his arm on a power tool was kept waiting for an ambulance because a communications operator sent out the wrong address. Told an ambulance was still an hour away after a wait of 40 minutes, the injured man's employer drove him to hospital.

Emergency Services Minister Neil Roberts admitted there had been a delay in dispatching an appropriate ambulance after a mistake about the address. "It resulted from an inadvertent highlighting of an incorrect address during the dispatch process," Mr Roberts said.

Wheelchair user Val Hughes, of Glenore Grove near Laidley, called Triple 0 about 8.45am on September 18 after a contractor cut his arm with a grinder and fainted at their gravel business. She said her husband was out and she did not want to ask a 17-year-old employee to drive the man to hospital.

Mrs Hughes said a Southport ambulance communications centre worker seemed confused about her location. When the worker fainted a second time, Mrs Hughes called the emergency number again at 9.05am and was told an ambulance would be there soon. "We waited, but we were starting to get very agitated," she said.

When Mrs Hughes called again at 9.25am, she said she was told an ambulance would be sent from Toogoolawah. "I reacted a bit and said that would take an hour," she said. She was then told an ambulance would be sent from Lowood. By then her husband, who had just returned home, decided to drive the injured man to Laidley Hospital, where he received 17 stitches.

Member for Lockyer Ian Rickuss said problems were still occurring despite $6 million spent on a computer-aided communications system. He called for the Government to ensure a back-up system was in place to safeguard against further malfunctions.

The article above by Kay Dibben appeared in the the Brisbane "Sunday Mail" on October 12, 2008







Australia: Public hospital negligence causes healthy baby to be aborted

A woman aborted her healthy son because doctors told her - wrongly - the boy would die of a rare terminal genetic abnormality. Corrina, 21, and partner Brad, 25, say they have gone through hell since they ended their son's life at 12 weeks. The Melbourne couple still mourn DJ, their fetus named after Brad's father, Douglas John. They sleep beside his ashes in their bedroom.

Corrina was told her baby had rare Menkes disease - which killed her toddler brother. "I had a termination . . . I lived through it, but for a long time I wanted to die," Corrina said. Months later, she was devastated when, she says, she was told the original Menkes diagnosis was wrong. She is suing two Melbourne hospitals, an international genetic clinic and the Government of Denmark, where some tests were performed.

Corrina's lawyer, Anne Shortall, of Arnold Thomas & Becker said her case was one of the most tragic and unusual. Corrina wants the hospitals, clinic and diagnosticians to guarantee this will never happen again.

Her younger brother Shane died from Menkes disease, which causes retardation, many health problems and a shortened life span. "Shane had no life, was in pain and couldn't cry," Corrina said. "I couldn't put another child through that." Menkes disease (also called kinky hair disease) affects boys and is caused by genetic mutation or passed on by a mother as a carrier. It affects the copper levels in the body and is indicated by high coppery levels in DNA and other tests.

When Corrina became pregnant she feared for her unborn child because her mother and sisters were carriers of the disease and "there was a good chance I was too". "When I was pregnant with DJ, I thought, 'If it is a boy, I can't let him be born as sick as Shane was'," she said. "I was only three, but I remember them taking my little brother, Shane, away, zipping his little body up in a bag - he was only 18 months old.

"I asked the experts to promise me they would put in place some protocols so this mistake would never happen again. "They wouldn't, so I said 'I'll see you in court'."

Ms Shortall said that during Corrina's pregnancy the Royal Women's Hospital's genetics department carried out tests on the fetus. She said experts at a genetics institute in Denmark were consulted and a sample was taken from Corrina's fetus using a kit supplied from Denmark and locally provided saline solution. "On September 22, 2005, Corrina underwent a termination of pregnancy on the basis of the doctors' advice that the fetus was affected by Menkes disease," Ms Shortall said.

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