The death of eight-year-old Amrita Lanka at Melbourne’s Monash Children’s Hospital was preventable, a deputy state coroner has found, as she became tearful while reading part of the girl’s mother’s impact statement.
Amrita died in 2022 from lymphocytic myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle. Her father, Chandra Sekhar, said the family had endured years of anguish and claimed hospital staff had “just left her to die”.
Amrita had initially attended the emergency department with nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain. Doctors suspected gastroenteritis, which causes inflammation of the stomach and small intestine.
Her condition worsened before a new doctor reviewed her at about 3am. A registrar then suspected myocarditis, while further blood tests raised additional concerns.
However, the registrar considered the results “spurious” and did not think Amrita “looked very unwell”, Deputy State Coroner Paresa Spanos said.
Amrita was later moved into acute care, where she suffered a brief cardiac arrest. She went into cardiac arrest again before a proposed transfer to Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital and could not be saved.
In her findings on Wednesday, Ms Spanos said the clinical management and care provided by Dr Patrick Tan, described as a relatively junior doctor with many responsibilities, had been inadequate.
“While I accept (emergency departments) are busy places and Dr (Patrick) Tan was a relatively junior doctor with many responsibilities, the clinical management and care he provided to Amrita was wanting … and thereby contributed to the death,” she said.
The coroner paused for a long time as she read from Amrita’s mother’s statement, composing herself before saying the girl had been “the most precious, talented, beautiful child”.
Monash Health acknowledged the coroner’s findings and said it would carefully consider them. The health service also said changes had been made since Amrita’s death.
