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Coroners Act In the matter of Coronial Findings and Recommendation into the Death of Ms Souzana Afianos pursuant to section 46B dated 1 January 2004

Details:

Title

Coroners Act In the matter of Coronial Findings and Recommendation into the Death of Ms Souzana Afianos pursuant to section 46B dated 1 January 2004

Other title

Tabled paper 1394

Collection

Tabled Papers for 9th Assembly 2001 - 2005; Tabled Papers; ParliamentNT

Date

2004-06-25

Description

Deemed

Notes

Made available by the Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory under Standing Order 240. Where copyright subsists with a third party it remains with the original owner and permission may be required to reuse the material.

Language

English

Subject

Tabled papers

File type

application/pdf

Use

Copyright

Copyright owner

See publication

License

https://www.legislation.gov.au/Series/C1968A00063

Parent handle

https://hdl.handle.net/10070/284441

Citation address

https://hdl.handle.net/10070/408388

Page content

the time she claimed then he would have retrieved it then. He however maintained that he had no recollection of any message from Dr Patton and that he had no recollection of what messages he retrieved on that occasion. Again, if that message related to the Deceased, then for the same reasons that I expected better recall of the discussions between Dr Treacy and the Deceased on the eve of her untimely death, I would expect him to also recall any message left by Dr Patton if Dr Patton had identified the Deceased as the topic of her call. In that event I would not credit any answer which claimed a lack of recall whether in total or in part. 76. Dr Treacy conceded that if Dr Patton had left a message which he had only retrieved at 11.23pm he would not have called her back then and most likely would have called her back next morning. This is of course very plausible and sensible. The events of the next morning obviated the need to return the call, again assuming that the Deceased had been identified as the topic of the call. This would excuse his failure to return the call. Dr Treacy therefore has nothing to gain by feigning a lack of recall. Combining this with the somewhat uncertain nature of Dr Pattons evidence regarding whether she left a message and if so its content, leads me to conclude that if Dr Patton did leave a message, then she did not identify the Deceased as the topic of her call. If she did leave any message then there is no dispute that Dr Treacy did not call her back and I so find. 77. Dr Treacy said that even in retrospect, had he seen the Deceased at that 2pm appointment he does not believe that there was then anything at the time which indicated that she was at a risk of dying. Dr Treacy expressed the view that there was no indication of infection when the patient was discharged from the Darwin Private Hospital on 17 February 2002 and subsequent analysis of the pathology report contained nothing to retrospectively change his view about that. Although he conceded that he would have been more concerned about the cancelled appointment had he then known the full details of the history taken at Accident & Emergency on 32