Death of foster care girl, 12, 'like Third World'

Death of foster care girl, 12, 'like Third World'

By Phoebe Stewart

November 30, 2007 12:00pm
Article from: Northern Territory News


http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599...63-421,00.html

A MEDICAL specialist has likened the condition of a Northern Territory
girl who died in foster care to sickness he had seen "in Third World
countries"
A 12-year-old girl, who was so ill that she defecated in her clothes,
died of septicaemia and osteomyelitis after passing out as she lay in
the dirt at her Palmerston home, a court heard.

Yesterday Dr Peter Sharwood, a Queensland orthopaedic specialist, told
the Darwin Magistrates Court he hadn't seen "a lot" of cases as bad as
the girl's - other than in Rwanda, East Timor or Bouganville.

When asked if he had ever seen such a delay in treating acute
osteomyelitis in an Australian child, the doctor said:

"I can't recall one."

Dr Sharwood, appearing via videolink, described the girl's condition as
a "boil within a bone" that, left untreated, had caused her thigh bone
to deteriorate.

He said large public hospitals usually saw about two cases of
osteomyelitis a week, but most parents or carers didn't let their
children "get to that stage" and brought them in for treatment "within a
matter of days with the onset of symptoms", including lethargy and loss
of function.

On Tuesday, the court heard the girl complained of soreness in her leg,
suffered a limp for three weeks, urinated and defecated in her clothes
after begging people to help her to the toilet, her gums bled and she
became delirious in her final hours.

Dr Sharwood said the girl could have been treated with antibiotics or
surgery if she had been seen earlier.

The girl's two women carers, one 42 years old and the other 43, were
committed to stand trial in the NT Supreme Court next year by Chief
Magistrate Jenny Blokland.

A relative told the court the once "happy-go-lucky" girl looked "pale"
was "weak" and complained about her leg.

"I suggested to (one of the carers) to ring an ambulance to take her to
the doctor," the relative said.

"She said no, do you want to argue with (the other carer)?

"And I said no. So I left it at that."

Both women cried in court as relatives gave evidence, and they were
bailed under strict conditions until their next appearance at the
Supreme Court in February.