Lawyer demands answers after hospital wrongly declared Melbourne woman dead in major mix-up
Representing a lawyer Melbourne woman wrongly reported dead He says no one should experience the trauma his client went through.
Kieran McKenzie of Slater and Gordon told Sunrise on Thursday that Michelle Buckley was still trying to come to terms with the extraordinary hospital chaos in which police mistakenly informed her family that she had died.
WATCH VIDEO ABOVE: Melbourne woman mistakenly declared dead by hospital
“I think we can all agree that what he’s going through here right now is something no one should ever have to go through,” McKenzie said.
“Imagine having to go through the process of telling your family, telling your friends, and at the same time trying to fix this mishap and let them know you’re alive.”
While Buckley was eating pizza at home on Saturday night, he received a text from his ex-partner offering his condolences for his death.
Within minutes, other family members called and were shocked that she was the one answering the phone. Buckley could hear loved ones crying in the background because they believed he was dead.
The extraordinary error occurred after another woman died while carrying Werribee Mercy Hospital documents containing Buckley’s name and date of birth.
Taking action upon this information, the police notified Buckley’s family that the woman had passed away.
As the news spread quickly among his loved ones, Buckley was left in the surreal situation of having to reassure his family and friends that he was indeed alive. The ordeal was particularly traumatic for his family, who had lost both parents in recent years.
McKenzie said Buckley did the best he could under the circumstances, but described the ordeal as extremely traumatic.
“At the end of the day, he’s a human being; he’s going through something terrible, traumatic, and it’s my job and his lawyer’s job here to be there for him and support him,” he said.
While searching for answers, Buckley also discovered that another woman’s medical history had been combined with her own health record.
Although he lived in Werribee, he had never received treatment at Werribee Mercy Hospital and had been referred there before.
The confusion was particularly concerning because Buckley was receiving his own medical treatment at the time, which made him concerned about whether scans, test results and other medical information were properly attributed.
Further compounding the trauma, McKenzie said it took nearly two weeks for the hospital to formally acknowledge the error to Buckley and only after he contacted staff to explain that he was still alive.
At a later meeting with hospital representatives, Buckley was told that the deceased woman had raised concerns about her personal details on four separate occasions before her death but no action had been taken.
The woman, who has been receiving care through Werribee Mercy Hospital and Mercy’s community team for nearly six months, was reportedly misidentified from the outset because her name and date of birth were similar to Buckley’s.
“I’m devastated for the woman who died,” Buckley said. ABC.
“I hope he was treated right. I don’t know if they used my records.”
Victoria Police have since correctly identified the dead woman.
McKenzie said the firm’s priority is to understand how identity confusion occurred, why it was allowed to continue, and to ensure no other family experiences the same trauma.
He said the incident affected not just Buckley, but an entire network of family and friends who believed they had lost a “much loved and respected family member and friend.”
The hospital apologized for the mistaken identification and said it was conducting a comprehensive review into how the incident occurred and whether changes needed to be made to strengthen patient identification processes.
