REACH - Patient and family activated escalation in Hunter New England LHD

On 19 October 2019 at 3.45pm baby Kyran Day arrived in hospital, weak and vomiting. 30 hours later, Kyran was pronounced dead. His death was preventable.

These are his parents:

[Naomi Day and Grant Day]

He was our beautiful little boy that was taken away from us and he shouldn't have been.

That's what we're fighting for, we did everything within our power to make sure that this didn't happen again because Kyran’s death was preventable.

How it happened:

He was throwing up throughout the day but just before he threw up he would go pale, like he was in pain and then he would throw up.

So we knew that there was something that wasn't quite right and it was both of

our moms that said to take him up to emergency.

At the hospital, Kyran was diagnosed with gastroenteritis and placed under monitoring. But throughout the night, Kyran’s condition worsened.

Because everyone kept saying it was gastro, that's what we had assumed it was. He was just in a daze, just staring at the wall in front of him.

The nurse would come to the door, and I was boiling my eyes out holding Kyran and

saying to her something is seriously, seriously wrong. You need to do something and all she could say to me was to wait for the doctor to come in at 10am in the morning.

When I arrived there in the morning it would have been about 8am and it was like seeing a different child. It was it was without exaggeration, it was horrific.

There was a few nurses coming in and out but they didn't seem to be looking at Kyran or listening to either of us.

Having your child in that condition and having no one listening to you when you know that there's something really wrong.

I've never felt so alone in my life.

In the morning, Kyran was re0diagnosed with intussusception, a condition where the bowel folds in on itself. Left untreated, it’s life-threatening.

Kyran was transferred by ambulance with Naomi for emergency treatment at a larger hospital. 

I think at the start I had a little bit of hope. The fact that he was getting transferred, then when a couple of things happened in the ambulance, that's when that all changed.

I looked at my phone and I had about nine missed calls on my phone and it was Naomi.

I rang her and she answered the phone she said that they at the hospital, um and that that his heart stopped.

To follow everyone into emergency and to see your son laying there with 50 million tubes coming out of him and at least 10 doctors there, I just collapsed.

They came in and they basically came in to tell us to come and say goodbye.

Kyran was flown to Sydney Children’s Hospital for emergency surgery. Against all odds, he survived the flight. However, after arriving in Sydney. Kyran was declared brain dead.

It breaks my heart. That it makes me angry.

What should have happened:

Listening to the parent should be the number one rule that babies and children don't have a voice, they can't put their hand up and say you know mommy something is seriously wrong, but us as a mother and a father, we know every little thing about Kyran from head to toe.

To have the nurse listen to me saying that there's something seriously wrong. For there to be an escalation process, you know everything could have been so different if they just done that.

What has changed:

Since Kyran's death in 2013, there's been monumental change. We've been working with the Clinical Excellence Commission, um on the REACH program.

• Recognise
• Engage
• Act
• Call
• Help is on its way.

Part of um the escalation process is making parents, caregivers feel comfortable so they can raise a hand if they're worried about their child and if there's something wrong.

I think that the REACH program is going to make a lot of difference and I'm hoping that the medical staff will um yeah just start to listen a lot more.

Grant and Naomi Day have generously worked with healthcare services to improve processes and raise awareness, so more families can better raise their hand to help loved ones.