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The news broke yesterday of one baby dying on July 13, 2016 along with a newborn girl in a critical condition with significant brain damage earlier in June 2016 and now, we are hearing of yet another baby affected by this tragic mistake.

9News are reporting that two years ago, another newborn baby was left with significant injuries due to the Bankstown-Lidcombe Hospital nitrous oxide / oxygen mix up.

In January 2014, the hospital installed new wall mounted oxygen units after a newborn was injured when an oxygen cylinder ran out in a birthing suite whist a baby was being resuscitated.

On Friday Sonya and Youssef Ghanem were informed by Bankstown-Lidcombe Hospital that their baby boy, John, had died from being mistakenly given a dose of unfiltered ­nitrous oxide gas instead of potentially lifesaving oxygen.

The family believed something had been wrong with baby John. A call came from hospital authorities told them something they never expected to hear. “We just got a call saying, ‘we need to talk to you as soon as possible’,” Chantal said.

“There’s some new information about the care your baby was given.”

When a second baby at the hospital experienced an unexplained deterioration – left with brain damage and severe impairment. Doctors would later find they repeated the same error which had killed Sonya and Youssef’s son.

9News are also reporting that the parents of the baby who died may not be able to claim compensation.

NSW Health Minister Ms Skinner said that the outlet responsible has been fixed, but the theatre remains closed.


All medical gas outlets located in a NSW Health facility are now being checked in order to help prevent tragedies such as these occurring in the future.

We are sending our love to the families affected.

Image via 9 NEWS

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  • This is so terrible. I wonder how many more babies have been affected

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  • These incidents are unforgiveable! I WAS A MIDWIFE FOR ABOUT 14 YEARS of my 19 year nursing career and NEVER ever saw oxygen and nitrous oxide get mixed up!!!! In the good old days the gases were in clearly labelled cylinders! Not this piped through the wall stuff .

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  • This is terrible. How many more of these will come to light? It should have been fixed after the first instance. There should have been no second and third.

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  • it just keeps getting worse!!

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  • A third one? This situation is so incredibly ugly and said.
    And shocking that that family can’t claim compensation. :-(

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  • It actually sounds like they injured the first baby, then installed the faulty unit to try to remedy th first problem. Which would be good, if it had been done properly.

    Reply

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