An investigation into the death in custody of a prisoner of Darwin’s Holtze facility, has revealed a series of medical warning signs were ignored before and during a fatal heart attack in 2022. The coronial inquest heard My Dooley, a 37-year-old man in custody on assault charges, when unmedicated for cardiovascular disease for months, and wasn’t hospitalised for a heart attack until it was too late. A warning that this story contains images of an Indigenous person who has died.
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00 A quiet man with limited English, a history of cardiovascular disease and a series of
00:08 prison convictions.
00:09 The coroner this week examining how Mr Dooley, who died in custody of a heart attack aged
00:14 just 37, was let down by the prison health system.
00:18 Family of the Maiali man hearing that Mr Dooley's death may have been prevented if clinical
00:23 staff had responded sooner to the symptoms of a heart attack in the 24 hours before he
00:28 was finally rushed to hospital.
00:30 He was seen by Dr Partington who initially determined that Mr Dooley must be suffering
00:35 from a gastrointestinal and dehydration issue.
00:39 His blood pressure was 80 over 40.
00:41 Mr Dooley was then taken to the Darwin Hospital and then transferred to the Darwin Private
00:46 Hospital for surgery.
00:47 He had, in effect, been suffering from the effects of a heart attack for two days.
00:52 The day before he was hospitalised, Mr Dooley's worsening condition was first noticed by another
00:58 prisoner - his nephew - who then told a prison officer, who then told the on-call nurse,
01:04 who then without seeing or speaking with Mr Dooley said his vomiting and dizziness were
01:09 the side effects of new medication.
01:12 The government acknowledging the lack of Aboriginal health workers within the health system, with
01:16 the skills to communicate medical diagnoses directly to prisoners with limited English.
01:22 Many years ago, a decade ago, we had a lot of Aboriginal health practitioners.
01:26 That number unfortunately has declined over the years but it's something we're acutely
01:29 aware of as a Territory Labor Government.
01:32 I know there's a lot of good work done out at the prison but sadly in this case Mr Dooley
01:36 was let down on a number of different occasions by a number of different practitioners.
01:41 Mr Dooley was one of 113 deaths in custody in Australia in 2022.
01:46 [BLANK_AUDIO]