Music festival doctor says he couldn't treat potentially deadly overdoses
The only doctor rostered to work the first two days of a NSW music festival, where a young man died, has admitted in court he wasn't capable of treating life-threatening MDMA overdoses.
Krishna Sura, a Sydney general practitioner by day, said he became concerned about how he'd manage the medical tent as the temperature approached 40C at the Lost Paradise festival in December 2018.
Brisbane man Joshua Tam – a 22-year-old who died at the Central Coast festival – is among six young people whose recent MDMA-related deaths at NSW music festivals is the subject of a NSW inquest.
Dr Sura said he hadn't worked in an emergency department for eight years and was "not at all" capable of putting tubes down someone's throat unsupervised or dealing with other elements of a life-threatening MDMA overdose.
He said he raised these issues with Mike Hammond, the director of the festival's contracted medical provider Event Medical Services.
"(He told me) that won't be required as there will be intensive care paramedics on site," the Mascot GP told the inquest on Monday.
"I think they were struggling to get doctors... (as) he requested I work at this festival."
Dr Sura said he was unaware of another doctor being on site between the end of his first shift at 2.30am on December 29 and his next shift at 1pm.
That second shift began two hours early as Dr Sura was already being asked questions by paramedics and "felt it was unfair for them to manage this without me", he said.
Mr Tam arrived at the tent critically ill with a temperature of 43C and heart rate of 190 beats per minute about 6.15pm. He later died in Gosford Hospital.
EMS was also the medical provider at Sydney music festival Defqon.1 where Melbourne woman Diana Nguyen, 21, and Sydney man Joseph Pham, 23, died after taking MDMA and presenting unconscious to the medical tent.
Sean Wing, who treated Mr Pham for six minutes before handing control to others in order to treat Ms Nguyen, said the situation was chaotic but he wasn't personally overwhelmed.s
"For some people, it was overwhelming," he told the NSW Coroners Court on Monday.
"It was a chaotic environment but I don't know it was overwhelming (for me)."
NSW Ambulance intensive care paramedic Timothy Mascorella earlier told the court the medical staff were overwhelmed by the number of patients and lack of medical equipment available and the lack of leadership "was completely abhorrent".
Dr Wing accepted there was a lack of clarity during his handover of Mr Pham's care to a junior doctor and another paramedic, but rejected it was due to his poor communication.
"I concede once I left the situation, there was a vacuum of leadership and those issues contributed to a sense of confusion about his care," he said.
The inquest continues.
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