Worker sacked over fatal baby gassing in Sydney hospital
A hospital engineer who installed the gas outlets at a Sydney hospital where a newborn baby boy died after being mistakenly given nitrous oxide has been stood down.
The boy was accidentally given the gas instead of oxygen at Bankstown-Lidcombe Hospital on July 13, just minutes after he was born.
A month earlier the same error left a newborn girl with suspected brain damage.
"It is my belief that BOC Limited, which installed and certified the medical gas outlet, and Bankstown-Lidcombe Hospital operating theatres, which was required under Australian standards to check it, will share responsibility for this tragedy," NSW Health Minister Jillian Skinner said on Tuesday as she handed down the findings of an interim report into the fatal bungle.
Ms Skinner said the full report - due to be completed in a fortnight - and a coronial inquest into the baby boy's death would help identify whether other hospital managers or staff contributed to the tragedy.
"If so, they'll be held to account," she said.
NSW Health facilities is now checking every medical gas outlet installed in the last five years, Ms Skinner said.
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