Grief-stricken parents demand urgent review after two-year-old son dies at Northern Beaches Hospital

A two-year-old boy has tragically died after being taken to Northern Beaches Hospital (NBH) for treatment, with his parents now calling for a comprehensive review of the hospital’s response to his condition.

“It is your worst nightmare as a mother and a father,” Sydney couple Elouise and Danny Massa told 7NEWS.

“You’re yelling inside, you’re breaking. Every single thing in your body is breaking because you feel as a mother that you actually can’t keep your child safe at the hands of medical practitioners in a broken system.”

The couple brought their son Joe to the emergency department of NBH on the morning of September 14 last year, after he had been vomiting and dry retching at their Balgowlah home the night before.

“You would hope he would be cared for in an excellent way,” Elouise said.

“Never in my wildest dreams would I ever have expected this to happen.”

The inadequate treatment at Northern Beaches Hospital

Joe presented with symptoms of severe illness, including limpness, a rash, near unresponsiveness, and an alarmingly high heart rate of 182 beats per minute (BPM), while the normal heart rate for a two-year-old ranges from 70 to 110 BPM.

Despite his heart rate rising to 197 BPM over the next 30 minutes, the hospital did not take the necessary action.

Looking back, Elouise believes Joe suffered from hypovolemia, a condition where the body loses too much fluid, which is typically treated with IV fluid resuscitation.

However, despite Elouise requesting an IV drip three times, each request was rejected.

“He’s looking floppy, pale, clammy to touch, sweating profusely, going in and out of consciousness. And I’m still being told to sit in a chair,” Elouise said.

The ED triage nurse and an emergency trainee doctor who attended to Joe categorised him as a Category 3 patient, meaning he was deemed to require treatment within 30 minutes.

In a statement, Elouise and Danny Massa said that this classification was a mistake, as Joe should have been placed in the Red Zone Category 2, which would have required treatment within 10 minutes due to the life-threatening nature of his condition.

To make matters worse, Joe wasn’t given a bed until two and a half hours after his admission.

Even then, he was neither connected to monitoring equipment nor given the IV fluids he urgently needed.

“I don’t have any medical training, but I do know my son and I did know that he was deteriorating. He was not getting any better. He was getting worse by the minute. And I could see that visually,” Elouise said.

Joe didn’t receive doctor’s attention until Danny, returning after caring for their two other children, arrived.

When Danny walked in, he found Joe and Elouise at the far end of the resuscitation room, with no medical staff around.

“I touched Joe’s face, and that’s when he basically went into a heart attack — we believe,” Danny said.

“And that’s when a doctor was behind me, and that’s when all the alarms went off.”

CPR was performed on Joe, but it was “too little, too late”.

“His entire time at the Northern Beaches Hospital, there was no urgency shown.”

Desperate to get Joe the care he needed, the couple began looking for another hospital, but by then, it was too late.

The CPR lasted for 29 minutes, causing severe, irreversible brain damage, which the couple says ultimately led to the heartbreaking decision to withdraw life support two days later.

“For a child, a two-year-old to be resuscitated, having CPR performed for 29 minutes, there is no chance that they’re coming out of that,” the couple said.

Joe was eventually transferred to Sydney Children’s Hospital, where the couple stated that his body responded well during surgery for an infection in his intestine.

“If NBH had acted, if its systems, and processes were effective, if staff had followed protocol, Joe could still be with us today,” the statement reads.

Parents’ urgent call for review

“Joe … was one of our three amazing children, and still is one of our three amazing children,” Danny told 7NEWS, holding a photo of his son.

Describing Joe as a “big softie”, Danny said he was “such a big, bubbly, happy little boy”.

Even after five months, they can still recall the exact timing of every moment that unfolded that day.

“The heartbreaking reality is that Joe’s death was entirely preventable,” the grief-stricken parents said, urging a comprehensive review of Northern Beaches Hospital, saying “they’re putting profits over the value of Joe’s life”.

“We want the local community to be able to trust and believe that if they take their child there that they’re going to be safe. It’s Sydney 2025. We need to have faith in the public health system.”

The couple demanded the NSW Government to take immediate action to upgrade the hospital’s electronic medical record system and triage protocols after critical failures, including the lack of an urgent response to their son’s dangerously high heart rate and repeated warnings from both clinicians and his parents.

“We want change at that hospital so no other parent, no one of our family or friends has to go through what we’ve gone through.”

Multiple failures revealed

Multiple failures have been unearthed in the lead-up to Joe’s tragic death.

A Serious Adverse Event Review (SAER) has supported the parents’ accusations, highlighting critical errors in his care.

The review found that Joe was not placed in the Red Zone despite his life-threatening symptoms, and vital signs were inadequately monitored.

The parents’ concerns were ignored, and there was a failure to prevent the escalation of his condition in the emergency department.

Additionally, the two emergency department clinicians involved did not meet the required standards of care.

“Our son should be here today. He had his whole life ahead of him, and we trusted Northern Beaches Hospital to provide the care he needed,” the parents said.

“Instead, he was failed at every level — by individuals, by hospital management, and by a system that values budgets over lives.”

Government reaction

NSW Premier Chris Minns on Thursday expressed deep regret over the tragic incident, calling it “a terrible, terrible mistake”.

“The health minister’s meeting with the family today. I’ll do anything we can to ensure that they get answers as to what happened,” Minns said.

“We take this incredibly seriously and I’m profoundly, profoundly sorry that this has happened. It’s absolutely heartbreaking.”

While Minns could not confirm whether the two clinicians involved are still employed at any hospitals, he emphasised that the case is a top priority for the Minister for Health.

Health Minister Ryan Park has spoken with the family by phone and is scheduled to meet them in person next week.

“I never want any parent to go through this,” Park said.

“A Serious Adverse Event Review has been undertaken and I can confirm Northern Beaches Hospital have accepted all recommendations.

“This incident raises serious questions about privatisation and this type of model — the matter of which is the subject of an auditor-general’s review.”

Scrutiny of NBH began before this

Northern Beaches Hospital was under scrutiny in July last year due to concerns about its operations and patient care, according to Manly Observer.

Since its opening in 2018 as a public-private partnership, the hospital has faced complaints about financial pressures possibly impacting the quality of care provided.

This includes growing wait times in the Emergency Department, with only 49.2 per cent of patients leaving within four hours, well below the state average.

Additionally, investigations have raised questions about the cost of public bed services, suggesting that the hospital may be charging the government significantly more than other public hospitals like Royal North Shore.