2 WEEKS OF CHILLING SILENCE AND A LATE HOSPITAL CONFESSION: The “d3:ad person answering the phone” mystery and the spine-chilling dark side behind the ignored warnings!
A lawyer representing a Melbourne woman who was wrongly declared dead says no one should have to endure the trauma his client has experienced.
Kieran McKenzie from Slater and Gordon told Sunrise on Thursday Michelle Buckley is still coming to terms with the extraordinary hospital mix-up that saw police wrongly notify her family she had died.
“I think we can all agree that what she has gone through here at the moment is something that no person should have to go through,” McKenzie said.
“Imagine having to go through the process of telling your family, telling your friends, as well as trying to fix up this mishap to let them know that you’re alive.”
Buckley was at home enjoying a Saturday night pizza when her ex-partner received a message offering condolences for her passing.
Within minutes, other family members called, shocked when she was the one who answered the phone. Buckley could hear loved ones crying in the background as they believed she had died.
The extraordinary error occurred after another woman died while carrying Werribee Mercy Hospital documents containing Buckley’s name and date of birth.
Acting on that information, police informed Buckley’s family she had passed away.
As word quickly spread through her loved ones, Buckley was left in the surreal position of having to reassure family and friends that she was, in fact, alive. The ordeal was particularly traumatic for her family, who had already lost both of her parents in recent years.
McKenzie said Buckley was doing the best she could under the circumstances, but described the ordeal as deeply traumatic.
“At the end of the day, she’s a person; she’s going through something terrible, something traumatic; my job here, as well as her lawyer, is to just be there for her and support her,” he said.
As Buckley searched for answers, she also discovered another woman’s medical history had been merged into her own health record.
Despite living in Werribee, she had never been treated at Werribee Mercy Hospital, having only previously been referred there.
The mix-up was particularly alarming because Buckley was undergoing her own medical treatment at the time, leaving her worried whether scans, test results and other medical information had been correctly attributed.
Compounding the trauma, McKenzie said it took around two weeks before the hospital formally acknowledged the mistake to Buckley, and only after she contacted staff herself to explain she was still alive.
During a later meeting with hospital representatives, Buckley was told the deceased woman had raised concerns about her personal details on four separate occasions before her death, but no action had been taken.
The woman, who had been receiving care through Werribee Mercy Hospital and Mercy’s community team for about six months, had reportedly been misidentified from the outset because her name and date of birth were similar to Buckley’s.
“I’m devastated for the woman who’s passed away,” Buckley told the ABC.
“I hope she was treated in the right way. I don’t know if they were using my records.”
Victorian Police have since correctly identified the deceased woman.
McKenzie said the firm’s priority is to understand how the identity mix-up occurred, why it was allowed to continue, and ensure no other family experiences the same trauma.
He said the incident had affected not only Buckley, but an entire network of family and friends who believed they had lost “a very much loved and well-respected family member and friend”.
The hospital has apologised for the mistaken identification and says it is conducting a thorough review into how the incident occurred and whether changes are needed to strengthen its patient identification processes.
SOURCE: 7 NEWS
https://7news.com.au/sunrise/lawyer-demands-answers-after-hospital-wrongly-declared-melbourne-woman-dead-in-major-mix-up-c-22615589
