Pictured: Seven-year-old Aishwarya Aswath
The devastated father of a seven-year-old girl who died from infection while waiting in a hospital emergency room has called for the state’s health minister and all medical staff involved to resign.
Aishwarya Aswath spent two hours in the waiting room at Perth Children’s Hospital for a fever on April 3, before she was triaged in the second-least urgent category.
Her parents begged for her to be assessed by doctors after her eyes became cloudy and her hands turned cold, but it was too late – she died after she was finally seen by a specialist.
On Saturday, the little girl’s father Aswath Chavittupara, 39, made a petition calling for Western Australian Health Minister Roger Cook, and everyone working on the evening of his daughter’s death, to stand down.
A report by WA’s Child and Adolescent Health Services found Aishwarya died of sepsis after contracting an infection in group A streptococcus.
The distraught dad said he has been contacted by many people with similar stories of ‘neglect’ and ‘poor service’ since Aishwarya’s shock death, and petitioned for Premier Mark McGowan to make changes to WA Health.
‘We call on the WA Premier to undertake the following actions: The resignation of the Health Minister Roger Cook,’ he wrote on change.org.
Aswath Chavittupara, 39, and Prasitha Sasidharan, 33 (pictured) say they were treated without compassion during their time at Perth Children’s Hospital
West Australian Health Minister Roger Cook addresses the media during a press conference at Dumas House on April 27 in Perth
Mr Cook has been fending off calls for his resignation since Aishwarya’s death, including from Australian Medical Association president Andrew Millar who said there had been ‘four years of failure in health in Western Australia’.
Mr Chavittupara also asked for all medical professionals working on the day of his daughter’s death to quit, along with the chief executive of the Children and Adolescents Health Services, Aresh Anwar.
Dr Anwar tried to stand down in mid-May but his resignation was rejected by Health Department bosses, who said his departure would be too destabilising.
On Sunday, Police Minister Paul Papalia expressed his sympathies to the Chavittupara family, but said ‘mass sackings’ were not the answer.
Aishwarya Aswath, seven, (pictured) waited for two hours in the emergency room of Perth Children’s Hospital only to die soon after she finally received treatment
The little girl’s family called on staff at Perth Children’s Hospital (pictured) to stand down
‘I understand everyone will hope that we don’t have to see this sort of an incident again, and the best thing we can do to tackle challenges that are confronted by the health system is not to have mass sackings,’ he said.
‘You don’t want to lose all of your skill sets and your knowledge and your experience, that would be completely counterproductive.’
Mr Papalia also stood up for Mr Cook and added there is ‘no one in Western Australian politics with as much knowledge of the health system’ as him.
In the petition, Mr Chavittupara also suggested changed to the health care system to be ‘more cognisant of parental concerns’ and ‘systemic changes to all aspects of patient care to be more inclusive’.
Within 20 minutes of arriving, Aishwarya’s hands were cold, her eyes were discoloured and her respiratory rate and heart rate were significantly elevated
AMA WA president Andrew Miller (pictured) also called on health minister Roger Cook to step down
‘Aishwarya’s death must not be in vain,’ he wrote.
The petition almost garnered 1,000 signatures within the first 24 hours.
The CAHS report in mid-May also found emergency department staff missed a ‘cascade’ of opportunities to escalate the seven-year-old’s care as she succumbed to a fatal infection on Easter Saturday.
Aishwarya’s parents sought help on five separate occasions while in the waiting room.
Within 20 minutes of arriving, her hands were cold, her eyes were discoloured and her respiratory rate and heart rate were significantly elevated.
But the severity of her condition wasn’t recognised until an hour and 17 minutes later, when a doctor noticed she had cold peripheries and slurred speech.
A report found a 30-minute period where it was left to one nurse to watch over eight waiting room cubicles as Aishwarya continued to deteriorate (pictured: parents of Aishwarya Aswath)
She entered a resuscitation bay but was pronounced dead within two hours.
The report highlighted a 30-minute period where it was left to one nurse to watch over eight waiting room cubicles as Aishwarya continued to deteriorate.
Mr Chavittupara and his wife Prasitha Sasidharan, 33 said the an internal report raised more questions than answers, and renewed calls for an independent inquiry into their daughter’s death.
‘We didn’t get the answers that we were looking for,’ an emotional Mr Chavittupara told reporters last week.
‘We knew they would only look at some of the areas and ignore the rest. That’s why we’ve been pushing for an external inquiry.’
He also said Mr Cook’s apology was ‘not good enough’.
‘I think some of the staff were ignoring us… they didn’t even pass on the message to their superiors so they could decide,’ he said.
State Premier Mark McGowan said of the incident: ‘We do have issues occur and this is clearly a big issue’
‘We found the staff were a bit rude and we found that the level of humanity that they had was very low.’
The McGowan Government insists the hospital was adequately staffed.
Mr Cook described his commitment to the little girl’s family as ‘unswerving’.
‘I promised to get to the bottom of what happened to Aishwarya and to take whatever action is necessary to prevent it from happening again,’ he said in a statement.
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The grieving couple have no doubt their seven-year-old daughter Aishwarya would still be alive if their concerns had been addressed
‘The root cause analysis made 11 recommendations. They are all being acted on.’
The CAHS report made 11 recommendations which the government agreed to implement at PCH within the next six months, including improvements to triage policy.
An independent inquiry will also be held into the PCH emergency department.
In meetings with hospital executives dating back to October last year, emergency department staff raised concerns around the safety of children in the waiting room.
Plans for the new hospital to have a triage support nurse who would check patients’ vital signs did not progress after it opened in 2018.
