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A Gold Coast father just found out he has terminal cancer and claims the hospital he attended failed in its attempts to inform he needed follow-up checks that he believes could have saved his life.
Jason Warwick has no idea how long he has left to live but claims if the health system had better informed him of the process after a diagnosis, he may have had more time.
“They didn’t give me a timeframe – I asked them that and they just said it could be any day. That’s what they said, they were their words,” Warwick told 9News reporter Tim Arvier.
“It’s terminal – there’s no fixing this, it’s already spread into my lymph nodes … so that’s it.”
The 51-year-old was admitted to Robina Hospital in September last year where he had scans taken identifying a mass in his chest, which doctors diagnosed as an infection.
He was prescribed antibiotics.
“The runny nose, the temperatures and everything, they all went away,” Warwick said.
The hospital said Warwick was told he needed to get a further check-up by his GP in six weeks, claiming those instructions were mailed to him.
Warwick said he had moved house and never got that letter.
“My number didn’t change. The only thing was I moved, I didn’t know they were after me. If they wanted me to see them, I would have been in there … if there was a chance to not die,” Warwick said.
The cancer eventually was picked up when Warwick became sick and was readmitted to the hospital two weeks ago.
Now, it’s going to kill him.
“Thinking about the kids [gets me emotional], I’m gonna miss all their big days,” Warwick said.
Warwick and his daughter Tayla Burns are preparing for the inevitable.
“I think the health system should do their jobs properly so that I don’t have to bury my dad before I’m 30 years old,” Burns said.
An email sent to Warwick by the Gold Coast Patient Safety unit said: “It has been identified that there were some clinical process issues surrounding your admission.
“As a result of the concerns identified … there has been a SAC 1 clinical incident confirmed.”
An SAC 1 clinical incident means any outcome of healthcare that is not reasonably expected that results in death or likely permanent harm.
Gold Coast Hospital and medical services executive director Kellie Wren told 9News “nothing has gone wrong in the case”.
The Gold Coast Health Service admitted last week that more than 50,000 patient hospital scans were still yet to be checked by a radiologist.
The health service insists Warwick’s case is not one of those.
“The scan would have been done by a radiographer and it was reported by a radiology registrar,” Wren said.
The health service maintains all standard procedures were followed and that the cancer was undetectable in September.
“We are a learning organisation, we over-classify rather than under-classify to make sure we leave no stone unturned so that we get every single learning,” Wren said.
Wren also claims the hospital sent a letter to Warwick’s GP, advising another checkup was needed.
“There was nothing outside standard practice within this case,” Wren said.
