Brice
Storyboard Text
- This is my family.
- I decided to sit down with both my parents, and ask them about a particular event in their life that has affected our whole family.
- This involved my deceased younger brother, named Brice, and an inexcusable health system fail.
- Hey Mum, hey Dad. I was wondering if I could talk to you about Brice?
- Yeah sure!
- That sounds great.
- Let's go sit on the couch.
- What did you want to know?
- I was hoping you could tell me about what happened with the hospital and how it impacted you and dad?
- Sure. Brice was born with a complication called pleurodesis which is a bulid up of fluid in the pleural cavity. This resulted in him having limited space for his lungs to develop. After two surgeries in Sydney in utero, it was decided his condition was not improving and he was born at 32 weeks.
- Where the doctors worried if he would survive?
- Yes, they were. Brice was a very healthy size at 32 weeks but because of the fluid impacting his organs, it caused a number of other complications.
- What impact did this have on us as a family?
- It was very hard as we had 2 young children - including, you - and your mother had had major surgery. Brice was in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and we could not be there with him nor could we help him. We relied on the Doctors to tell you what was happening and how he was. We were there every spare minute but it did not seem like it was enough.
- Then Brice turned a corner and was doing really well. He had been cleared of cerbal palsy and his lungs were developed.
- We were told he would be rested over the weekend and no more tests would be done as he was doing so well. We were also told we could give him is first cuddle on the Monday!
- Unfortunately, that the weekend the Doctors made a decision that was not consulted with his specialists or us, and removed him off life support.
- Is that allowed?
- No! The only reason we knew is because we walked in when they had just done it. Brice was not coping with the changes. A specialist was called in and they put him back on life support.
- As a result of this decision not to read the previous notes from the specialists and not call us, his parents, Brice went backwards very quickly.
- This meant that all the progress he had made in 2 weeks was undone in an hour!
- Were they communicating with you on what they were doing?
- Unfortnately not. We were not told anything. All we knew is that Brice could not breathe and was in destress.
- What happened next?
- Monday morning came around after they retubed him. His heart was no longer able to deal with the stress of what they had done over the weekend.
- Brice passed away later that day due to complications of being retubed and heart failure.
- What happened to the Doctors that made the wrong decisions?
- The police came in and interviewed all the nurses and Doctors involved, as well as your mum and I. It was decided it needed to be sent to the coroner to be investigated.
- This took nearly 18 months to finalise but we were advised that the Doctors had made the wrong decisions and we could presue further action if we wanted.
- We made a decision that we would not persue anything as we needed to move forward for our family.
- Are you still happy with your decision?
- Yes! It has made us stronger and makes us appreciate our family just a little bit more than most.
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