The Fraser Health Authority has initiated a patient safety review after a three-year-old girl died at Abbotsford Regional Hospital earlier this month.
Nimrat Gill died five hours into her second hospital visit in two days on Feb. 7, her mother Balraj Gill said.
“I have lost my future,” Gill said, in an email to The News. “I lost my sweetie pie.”
Around 2 a.m. Feb. 6 Gill brought Nimrat and her husband Amarinder, who were both sick, to the hospital. Amarinder was prescribed antibiotics but the doctor told her to give her daughter Tylenol.
Gill said she returned home with her family around 7 a.m. that morning and gave their daughter Tylenol as directed but the illness persisted throughout the day.
The next night, Nimrat once again couldn’t sleep and her sickness worsened, as she began vomiting, her mother said.
At 5 a.m. on Feb. 7 Gill took her back to the hospital.
It is not clear what happened over the next five hours but x-rays were taken of Nimrat at some point and blood was drawn for tests, both of which Gill said should have happened on her daughter’s first visit.
Doctors performed CPR on Nimrat about five hours after she arrived at hospital to no avail, Gill said.
Fraser Health spokesperson Tasleem Juma said the review underway is a joint effort between ARH’s emergency department and the health authority’s Maternal, Infant, Child and Youth team.
“Anytime there’s an unexpected death, there is a review of the circumstances and from the review then we look at if there’s anything that we need to change and move to do differently for the future,” she said.
“We know that this is a very difficult time for this family and our hearts certainly do go out to them at this time,” Juma said.
The province’s health minister, Terry Lake, was asked about Nimrat Gill’s death and Fraser Health Authority’s review following a press conference announcing new funding for mental health and addiction services.
“I don’t want to second guess health professionals and the decisions they make but Fraser Health along with Abbotsford Regional Hospital are doing a deep investigation into this to understand exactly what happened so we can determine changes in procedures and processes to avoid this in the future,” Lake said.
Separate from the Fraser Health review, the coroner’s office has an investigation underway into the cause of Nimrat’s death.
The Gill family has also filed an official complaint with Fraser Health Authority’s Patient Care Quality Office, Juma said.
