NSW minister quizzed over 'mix-up' which left two deceased infants incorrectly identified
Besieged NSW Health Minister Jillian Skinner has faced questioning during a fiery budget estimates hearing, after it was revealed the bodies of two deceased infants and an elderly patient, had been incorrectly identified while under the care of her department.
A miscarried baby was mistakenly cremated after staff confused the infant with a still born baby at Royal North Shore Hospital last year.
"There was a blanket on one of them with a label that led the staff to believe that it was the other baby," Ms Skinner told the hearing.
The oversight meant that one grieving family was unable to bury their child.
Another 'mix-up' at the same hospital in April of this year saw an elderly woman's body tagged under someone else's name.
The mistake was only recognised after the woman's daughter requested to have one final goodbye with her mother and noticed the error when the body bag was opened.
The blunders have come to light less than two months after the gassing tragedy at Bankstown-Lidcombe hospital, where two babies were mistakenly given nitrous oxide instead of oxygen.
A baby boy died and a newborn girl suffered suspected brain damage after the incident in June and July this year.
Ms Skinner defended her decision to avoid the media when a report into the catastrophic bungle was released publicly on Saturday.
The report found "a series of tragic errors" including incorrect installations of gas pipelines, flawed testings and significant clinical and management failures caused the deadly error.
"I wanted the focus to be on the findings of the chief health officer (Dr Kerry Chant). This was her report. It's a really important report," Ms Skinner told the hearing on Tuesday afternoon.
"Do you think it was a mistake, that you should have fronted up with Dr Chant?" Labor health spokesman Walt Secord asked the minister.
"No I don't. I did it deliberately because I wanted the focus to be on her report, on the findings that would give confidence to the public that the system was safe," Ms Skinner told the committee.
"If I had been there, that would not have been the focus. By not being there, that was the focus. That was what the media was reporting."
Ms Skinner said she eventually agreed to front television crews after several requests late on Saturday afternoon because by then "there had been enough time for the media to absorb the matters in (the) report".
