Allegations palliative care patient may have been alive when placed in body bag at Rockingham Hospital

Friday, 7 October 2022 09:12

By Monique Welhan

Rockingham Hospital is facing shocking allegations that a 55-year-old man may have been alive when he was placed in a body bag and taken to the morgue.

It's understood the man, who was in palliative care, was pronounced dead by a nurse on the evening of September 5 before being transferred to the morgue the same night.

He was not issued with a death certificate.

On September 6, a doctor went to the morgue to certify the death but when they unzipped the body bag they noticed there had been some signs of life.

In a complaint sent to the coroner and obtained by 9News, the doctor said there was fresh blood from a skin tear, the man's limbs had moved and his eyes were open.

“I believe the frank blood from a new skin tear, arm position and eye signs were inconsistent with a person who was post-mortem on arrival at the morgue,” the doctor wrote in his report to the coroner.

The doctor then proceeded to record the man's death as September 6, but there's claims hospital officials asked him to backdate the death to the night before in an apparent attempt to cover up the incident.

"The doctor was requested to consider whether they would be prepared to put the time of death as the previous day when the nurse had assessed the death, the doctor declined to do that," South Metropolitan Health Service chief executive Paul Forden said.

"My understanding was he was requested to do it twice."

It's understood the doctor has since resigned.

The South Metropolitan Health Service and the Coroner's Office is now investigating.