A Queensland hospital should not have turned away a pregnant woman without first checking on her baby’s condition, an independent investigator has found.
Emma Green’s son Waylan died in the womb in May and she is still struggling with the prospect that his death might have been avoidable.
Ms Green was turned away from Rockhampton Hospital several times, including on the day she was due to be induced.
The birth unit was so full she was asked to go away and come back in a few hours, independent clinical investigator Dr Andrew Pesce told AAP on Friday.
He was speaking after making seven recommendations to Queensland Health aimed at improving services.
The state government asked him to review the case, despite the fact Waylan’s autopsy didn’t reveal any obvious cause of death nor any link to the way the hospital treated Ms Green.
“She didn’t get past the front door,” Dr Pesce told AAP on Friday.
“She was told to come back later and no attempt was made to check whether or not anything had happened, which would have made that advice inappropriate.
“They let her go without doing anything to check if that was an appropriate decision. There wasn’t an attempt to do a risk assessment.”
It is not known if Waylan was alive at the time his mother was turned away.
“She’s extremely sad. In a way she’s angry because she feels maybe this all could have been avoided because there were several opportunities when she came in,” Dr Pesce said.
“In hindsight, if things had been different, the outcome could have been different.”
Dr Pesce recommended Queensland Health develop a new policy to ensure patients are better assessed before any elective induction of labour is postponed.
He also wants new guidelines to improve management of post-date pregnancies and the treatment of reported decreases in fetal movements.
A single point of contact should also be provided to liaise with patients.
“My recommendations were looking at what happened and identified things which could be done better, none of those things necessarily contributed to Waylan’s death,” he said.
A spokesman for Mr Springborg says Queensland Health will adopt all recommendations.
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