The mother of a baby girl who died at a south-east Queensland hospital hopes an inquest brings “truth, accountability and change” and is a “catalyst” for better neonatal care.<\/p>\n
Thea Flaskett died four hours after a vacuum assisted delivery at Redcliffe Hospital in September 2023.<\/p>\n
An autopsy found the newborn had an undetected congenital heart defect which likely caused her death.<\/p>\n
The Deputy State Coroner has been tasked with trying to determine several issues, including whether her condition should have been diagnosed during her mother’s pregnancy.<\/p>\n
She will also probe the adequacy of Thea’s care in the hours before she died.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Meg and James in hospital with baby Thea.\u00a0 (Supplied)<\/p>\n
Thea’s family, including her mother Meg Flaskett, have been present for the coronial inquiry, which has was held in Brisbane’s Coroners Court over six days.<\/p>\n
‘Miracle baby’<\/p>\n
On Friday, Ms Flaskett read a family statement to the court, saying Thea was their “miracle baby” and her “painfully short” life was “full of meaning”.<\/p>\n
“We are here today because Thea mattered,” she said.<\/p>\n
“She was deeply loved and still is.”<\/p>\n
Ms Flaskett told the court her baby’s death was “the stuff of nightmares” and had “changed who we are.”<\/p>\n
Inquest into death of baby at Redcliffe Hospital begins<\/a><\/p>\n A coroner will determine the cause of Thea Flaskett\u2019s death, which prompted a full clinical review at the hospital.<\/p>\n “Thea’s birth was traumatic … a moment that should have been filled with beauty is now darkened by fear panic and helplessness,” she said.<\/p>\n Ms Flaskett said she placed her trust in the hospital system, but that trust “was not honoured”.<\/p>\n “We knew something was wrong,” she said.<\/p>\n “They were not unfortunate moments, they were failings.”<\/p>\n Ms Flaskett said her daughter’s voice will “leave behind a legacy”.<\/p>\n “We want Thea’s story to be a catalyst,” she said.<\/p>\n “A reason to look deeper, listen more carefully, act more quickly and treat every baby as the precious irreplaceable life that they are.<\/p>\n “We hope this inquest brings truth, accountability and change, not just for us but for Thea, and every family who might walk a similar path in the future.”<\/p>\n Meg Flaskett says she hope the findings will make recommendations so that “future babies don’t suffer”. (ABC News: Chris Gillette)<\/p>\n Evidence from hospital staff<\/p>\n Several witnesses gave evidence throughout the inquest, including medical staff who treated Thea before she died. One witness was the paediatric registrar involved in her resuscitation.<\/p>\n Dr James Kelly told the court Thea was born in a good condition and was crying when she was placed on her mother’s chest, but after five minutes she went into respiratory distress and started grunting.<\/p>\n He told the court he immediately began resuscitation attempts, including intermittent positive pressure ventilation, administering oxygen and using his thumb to block a valve.<\/p>\n “I was essentially providing active breathing,” he said.<\/p>\n Dr James Kelly disputed some of the family’s claims, including that baby Thea was “blue” immediately after birth. (AAP: Jono Searle)<\/p>\n Dr Kelly told the court when Thea was not responding to these interventions, he contacted the Paediatric Director to ask him to attend the hospital.<\/p>\n “At this point I was anticipating that our efforts were being unsuccessful, I was anticipating cardiac arrest ,” he said.<\/p>\n If you\u00a0or someone you know\u00a0needs help:Red Nose 24\/7 Grief and Loss Support Line<\/a> supports anyone affected by the loss of a pregnancy, stillbirth, baby or child death. Call 1300 308 307MensLine<\/a>\u00a0Australia:\u00a01300 78 99 78BeyondBlue<\/a>:\u00a01300 22 4636In an emergency, call triple-0<\/p>\n During that call, the court heard Thea’s heart rate dropped to below 60 and Dr Kelly had to intubate her and attempted to insert a central access IV line to administer adrenaline.<\/p>\n He told the court this was unsuccessful, and he asked a nurse to call the neonatal retrieval team based at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital to organise an emergency transfer of Thea.<\/p>\n Under cross examination by the family’s lawyer, Dr Kelly disputed Thea had a lower Apgar score directly after birth, which was recorded retrospectively by another staff member.<\/p>\n “If she had respiratory distress at one minute of life, she would have needed to be resuscitated sooner,” he said.<\/p>\n Several witnesses gave evidence throughout the inquest including the paediatric registrar involved in her resuscitation at Redcliffe Hospital.\u00a0 (ABC News: Liz Pickering)<\/p>\n When asked why he thought an inaccurate score was recorded after her death, he said he could “only speculate”, but believes it is because Thea died.<\/p>\n “I think that those numbers came from the fact that there had been a terrible outcome,” he said.<\/p>\n It’s been two years since Thea’s death. (Supplied)<\/p>\n Dr Kelly accepted Thea’s heart rate was not checked at the one minute mark, but refuted Ms Flaskett’s claim that her baby wasn’t crying and was struggling to breathe.<\/p>\n He also disagreed with the parent’s version Thea was “blue” and “floppy” immediately after birth.<\/p>\n When asked about a three minute time difference noted in records, in relation to when Thea was moved from her mother to be resuscitated, he said “there was no delay”.<\/p>\n “I don’t know what the discrepancy is on the documentation \u2026 but whenever we recognise the respiratory distress, we move them,” he said.<\/p>\n “We didn’t leave her on Mum’s chest grunting in respiratory distress.”<\/p>\n Dr Kelly told the court there was no dispute between him and the midwife about when to start resuscitation, or that there was any specific issue with an empty oxygen cylinder.<\/p>\n “I recall that it was changed, I don’t recall there being any difficulty,” he said.<\/p>\n Meg and James Flaskett have been attending the inquiry. (Supplied)<\/p>\n Pregnancy scans questioned<\/p>\n Earlier in the inquest, the court heard from two sonographers who carried out a mid-trimester screening scan on Ms Flaskett at 20 weeks into her pregnancy.<\/p>\n Both testified they did not determine from the ultrasound imagery Thea had Transposition of the Great Arteries (TGA) which she was diagnosed with post-mortem.<\/p>\n Amanda Leddy told the court the scan is to ensure everything “looks normal to us”, but within “limitations of the scan”, such as the position of the baby and placenta.<\/p>\n Baby Thea Flaskett died hours after her birth at Redcliffe Hospital, north of Brisbane, in 2023.\u00a0 (ABC News: Sissy Reyes)<\/p>\n The court heard at the time, additional imaging was taken, which was not required under Australian sonography standard guidelines, including a cinematic sweeping of Thea’s heart.<\/p>\n Ms Leddy told the court, even with the additional imaging, she had not picked up on any issues with Thea’s heart.<\/p>\n “If I had detected any abnormalities \u2026 I would have reported them to my supervisor,” she said.<\/p>\n Craig Collins\u00a0(left) said he carried out a scan of Thea and “did not see any abnormality”. (ABC News: Chris Gillette)<\/p>\n Her supervisor Craig Collins also carried out a scan of Thea and reviewed the imaging Ms Leddy had taken, saying he did “not see any abnormality”.<\/p>\n Both were shown the ultrasound images in court and reiterated even in hindsight it presented as a normal developing foetal heart.<\/p>\n A radiographer who was sent the images at the time came to the same conclusion, as well as several radiology experts who also gave evidence during the hearing.<\/p>\n Other paediatric and cardiac experts also testified about Thea’s heart condition, with some saying they believed the outcome may not have changed even if she had been born at a tertiary hospital and had access to more specialised cardiac care sooner.<\/p>\n The Deputy State Coroner has reserved her findings.<\/p>\n Meg Flaskett attends the final day of the inquest in Brisbane. (AAP\/Jono Searle)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The mother of a baby girl who died at a south-east Queensland hospital hopes an inquest brings “truth,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":154051,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,103016,39042,103017,74655,44,103014,103015,74654],"class_list":["post-154050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-congenital-heart-defect","tag-coronial-inquest","tag-james-flaskett","tag-meg-flaskett","tag-news","tag-paediastric","tag-registrar","tag-thea-flaskett"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154050\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n