{"id":253227,"date":"2025-09-25T09:06:31","date_gmt":"2025-09-25T09:06:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/253227\/"},"modified":"2025-09-25T09:06:31","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T09:06:31","slug":"coroner-finds-monash-health-provided-unreasonable-care-before-toddler-dio-kemps-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/253227\/","title":{"rendered":"Coroner finds Monash Health provided unreasonable care before toddler Dio Kemp’s death"},"content":{"rendered":"

The mother of a three-year-old girl who died with sepsis has called for health professionals to do better, after a coroner found she was not given reasonable medical treatment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Miranda Jowet took her daughter, Dio Kemp, to Monash Medical Centre in Melbourne’s south-east four times and also visited her local general practice twice over 10 days in November 2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The toddler initially had diarrhoea and a rash, which later worsened, with a fever and uncontrollable crying.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dio, who had Down syndrome, died on November 29, 2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Coroner’s Court today found the care provided by doctors at Monash Medical Centre in the lead up to her death ‘was not reasonable’.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Dio Kemp initially fell ill with a rash and diarrhoea.\u00a0 (Supplied)<\/p>\n

Speaking outside court, Ms Jowet spoke of the anguish of her daughter dying in her arms.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I watched Dio die in front of me, and my son and I will never forget the desperate attempts to resuscitate her tiny body,” she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On the four occasions she presented to Monash Medical Centre’s emergency department, Ms Jowet was told to give her daughter paracetamol and keep her fluids up.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I urge doctors to set aside assumptions and truly listen to parents,” Ms Jowet said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We know our children best.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"a<\/p>\n

The mother of Dio Kemp spoke of her anguish outside the Coroner’s Court of Victoria.\u00a0 (ABC News: Kyle Harley)<\/p>\n

In findings released today, Coroner Paresa Spanos found the care provided by doctors at Monash Health during the toddler’s final two presentations was ‘not reasonable’ by current standards.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The coronial inquest investigated whether Monash Health complied with its protocol to review cases of patients who returned to the emergency ward within 72 hours.<\/p>\n

Ms Jowet said she felt medical professionals did not listen to her and should have prioritised her daughter’s care.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“People with an intellectual disability must be given the highest priority,” she said.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The inquest into the death of three-year-old Dio Kemp ended on Friday.\u00a0 (ABC News: Darryl Torpy)<\/p>\n

Care at hospital ‘not reasonable’<\/p>\n

While the coroner found Monash Medical Centre did not provide reasonable care to the toddler during the final presentations before her death, she found the care provided earlier was reasonable.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Her initial illness with its associated symptoms of diarrhoea and rash were caused by a viral infection,” Coroner Spanos said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She last presented to the hospital on November 23, six days before she died.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Coroner Spanos said the evidence suggests she developed sepsis three days before her death.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The court heard Monash Health has undertaken an internal review and improved practices.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A Monash Health spokesperson said it will review the findings and consider any recommendations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Toddler<\/p>\n

Dio Kemp’s family is calling on health services to improve sepsis training and for staff to listen to parents. (Facebook)<\/p>\n

Emotional plea for sepsis training<\/p>\n

Dio Kemp’s uncle Paul Oliver called on Monash Health to listen to parent’s concerns and improve training in the recognition of and treatment of sepsis.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Parents know when our kids are unwell. We know instinctively long before any clinical markers become present,” Mr Oliver said.<\/p>\n

He said Monash Health needed to do better and he wanted to see better sepsis training for medical professionals.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Unless the culture within paediatric emergency medicine starts to change at Monash, more children will die.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“It is our sincere hope that Monash will now listen and implement any recommendations.<\/p>\n

“We don’t want to see other parents go through this.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

He mentioned the death of two-year-old Lachlan Black who also died from Sepsis after presenting to the Monash Health emergency department<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Boy ‘could have been saved’<\/a><\/p>\n

Human error probably led to the death a two-year-old boy after Melbourne doctors misdiagnosed a blood infection, the Victorian Coroner says.<\/p>\n

In 2017, a coronial inquest recommended Monash Health implement a policy to re-evaluate patients who return to the emergency department within 72 hours.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ms Jowet said it was not acceptable for health services to repeatedly send sick children home.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“The joy [Dio] brought to my life is irreplaceable,” she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I miss her every morning when I wake up and every night when I go to sleep.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I will never forget the pain she endured.”\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The mother of a three-year-old girl who died with sepsis has called for health professionals to do better,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":253228,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4740,133702,245,17667,3582,96359,210,6478,133699,50,133700,133701,881,16692],"class_list":{"0":"post-253227","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-case-review","10":"tag-children","11":"tag-childrens-health","12":"tag-emergency-care","13":"tag-emergency-department","14":"tag-health","15":"tag-hospital","16":"tag-monash-health","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-parenting-and-families","19":"tag-peadiatric-care","20":"tag-public-health","21":"tag-sepsis"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115264145702498640","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253227\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}