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Sheila Thurlow died after being issued 1,000 times the intended level of morphine at North West Private Hospital in Brisbane
ABC NEWS (Australia)
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10/9/2024
A heartbroken Queensland family is searching for answers after they lost a wife and mother while undergoing treatment in a Brisbane Hospital. Shiela Thurlow was given 1,000 the intended dose of Morphine during a simple procedure.
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00:00
A retirement village in Brisbane's north is where Sheila Thurlow and her husband Raymond
00:11
had planned to live out their final years.
00:14
Sheila only got the benefit of living here for 13 months before she passed.
00:19
Since she passed, I have found it extremely difficult.
00:23
This rose and that rose, we got them from Toowoomba.
00:27
Sheila loved spending time in the rose garden, but a cancer diagnosis left her struggling
00:31
with severe pain.
00:33
Her doctor proposed inserting a pain pump in her spine to dispense medication.
00:38
It was supposed to be a simple procedure.
00:42
The 85-year-old was taken to North West Private Hospital for the procedure on a Saturday in
00:47
June of 2022.
00:50
I left the hospital thinking, well, this will all go along fairly soon, they won't want
00:56
me sitting around here, so I'll come back later.
01:00
After hours of silence, a doctor returned their call and told them something had gone
01:05
terribly wrong.
01:06
We were with Sheila, we were holding her hand, we were calling her, Sheila, darling, mum,
01:14
squeeze my hand.
01:17
There wasn't a great deal of response.
01:19
The pain pump had been inserted without issue, but Sheila had been given 1,000 times the
01:25
intended dose of morphine.
01:28
It was enough to kill her.
01:30
For the first 12 months, I just was a bit of a wreck.
01:39
To think that you take your wife to hospital one day and she's dead the next.
01:43
Sheila Furlow's autopsy report lists her cause of death as morphine toxicity.
01:48
The ABC understands it was the first time that this particular procedure was performed
01:52
at the hospital.
01:54
But ABC has also seen the hospital's submission to the health ombudsman.
01:58
It acknowledges miscommunication between staff and says nurses had not received training
02:03
on the procedure, noting one had Googled it the night before.
02:08
A spokesperson for Northwest Private Hospital said they are limited in their ability to
02:13
respond due to privacy restrictions, with legal and coronial processes underway.
02:20
The hospital said it's carried out open disclosure with the family and has implemented
02:25
a range of immediate actions, including issuing a document about the safety lessons learned.
02:31
Two years on, the family is still grappling with the loss.
02:35
She would have wanted to say her final goodbyes to her husband, to her kids, but didn't get
02:44
that choice because people who were paid big bucks to do a highly skilled job weren't
02:51
able to.
02:53
They want justice and are calling for a coronial inquest to be launched swiftly into her death.
02:58
Whichever party or parties failed in their execution of their duty need to be held accountable.
03:10
The Coroner's Court of Queensland said they hope to hold a pre-inquest conference before
03:14
the end of the year.
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