<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?> <docID>334803</docID> <postdate>2024-12-06 17:09:49</postdate> <headline>‘Deeply sorry’: faceless hospital admits it failed little Rozalia</headline> <body><p><img class="size-full wp-image-268917" src="https://citynews.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/220919_CN_KatrinaSpadafora_002-resized-e1664154499889.jpg" alt="" width="804" height="519" /></p> <caption>Mother Katrina Spadafora and photo of daughter Rozalia. Photo: Holly Treadaway</caption> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>In a grovelling apology, Canberra Health Services has admitted its failings in the death of five-year-old Rozalia Spadafora at Canberra Hospital on July 5, 2022.</strong></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The pre-schooler suffered a cardiac arrest almost 30 hours after presenting to the hospital while awaiting emergency transfer to Sydney for specialist treatment.</span></p> <p>Earlier on Friday the ACT Coroner's Court found the delay in treating Rozalia at Canberra Hospital left her with no opportunity of survival. The coroner found the little girl was not seen by a doctor for more than five hours when she should have been seen within 30 minutes based on her triage category.</p> <p>CityNews is unaware of any statement or resignation on Friday from Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith, who was criticised at the time of Rozalia's death for sending the family a text of condolence.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">The unattributed statement from the CHS (whose CEO's name is Dave Peffer) says: "The care provided to Rozalia did not meet the standard that CHS should provide to our patients, their families and loved ones.</p> <p><img class="size-full wp-image-268983" src="https://citynews.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Rozalia-.jpeg" alt="" width="479" height="720" /></p> <caption>Rozalia Spadafora... no opportunity of survival, says coroner.</caption> <p style="font-weight: 400;">"Rozalia and her mother and grandmother had to wait too long to be seen. Once seen, the systems and processes of CHS let Rozalia and her family down and did not support our clinicians and staff to provide the best care to her and her family."</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">"For those failings we are deeply sorry.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">"We fully accept the findings of the coroner and have already implemented many changes to improve the care we provide to children.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">"This includes hiring additional specialist staff, expanding services, more training for our team members, ensuring clearer processes are in place, making structural improvements at our facilities and having clearer escalation points for our health workers.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">"We are committed to making further changes as recommended by the coroner."</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"> </body>