"The absence of a cardiothoracic surgery service at RDH meant that nothing could be done to save her in Darwin, and she would have passed away before any transfer to Adelaide was achievable." "If such a practice were applied to the management and treatment of every patient in there would be simultaneous testing for scores of conditions which would be unlikely to yield results and such over-testing would grind the system to a halt," Judge Armitage wrote. In her findings, coroner Elisabeth Armitage wrote that the additional CT scan recommended by Professor Raftos was not conducted partly because of how rare the suspected disease was. Over-testing would 'grind system to a halt'
The diagnostic process was proceeding appropriately but could not outpace the disease process."ĭr Palmer said even if the aortic dissection had been detected on the night Janelle died, she would have still been waiting for transport to Adelaide at the time she ultimately suffered a cardiac arrest.
"I would not consider this a missed diagnosis. and then progress to exclude less likely conditions," he said. You sequentially exclude the likely diagnoses. "Complex condition diagnosis is akin to peeling an onion one layer at a time. The director of the emergency and trauma centre of RDH, Associate Professor Didier Palmer, disagreed with parts of Professor Raftos's assessment of the situation, telling the coroner the process that diagnosing doctors followed was appropriate. The inquest was heard before coroner Elisabeth Armitage. "It is tragic and regrettable that a 35-year-old woman who had none of the risk factors usually seen in a person suffering from an aortic dissection, passed away unexpectedly from such a rare condition," Judge Armitage wrote. Under territory law, Janelle's death was a "death in care" and required a mandatory coronial inquest.Ĭoroner Elisabeth Armitage found Janelle's death was "unavoidable" and made no recommendations, writing her care by medical staff was "appropriate." She had been suffering mental health issues and was sectioned in the hospital's mental health ward when she began complaining of chest pain and was found to have a high heart rate. Janelle – as her family requested she be called – died of a rare Type A aortic dissection seven hours after she was rushed to Royal Darwin Hospital (RDH) from the remote community of Bulman, around 300 kilometres north-east of Katherine, in July 2021. Warning: This story contains the name of an Indigenous person who has died, used with the permission of her family.
0 kommentar(er)
