A Padstow couple were left in utter shock following the news their stillborn daughter was accidentally cremated at a Sydney hospital.
Stella Pirko and Anthony Meyers, whose baby, Krystal Rose, was born at 28 weeks gestation, had authorised genetic testing and an autopsy to be carried out on their late little girl.
Scans showed that baby Krystal had an enlarged bladder that doctors said was compromising her other organs. The Liverpool hospital staff suggested Ms Pirko terminate the pregnancy.
The grief-stricken couple hoped the post-mortem scans would provide clarity as to why their daughter had suffered such complications, but nothing could have prepared them for what they would soon discover.
According to Nine News, baby Krystal was left in a morgue for nine days before being wrongly sent to a funeral home for cremation.
“I came home, I was suffering… I was a mother without a baby and it was so hard,” Ms Pirko told the network.
“We trusted them to do their jobs — to find out what happened to our baby. We cannot fathom how this happened.”
Nine News reports that the parents’ paperwork went missing. A lack of hospital funding and the fact that there was no full-time staff at the hospital mortuary means that now, the couple have no closure.
“Now we’re stuck five months after the baby has been delivered, we don’t have answers,” Mr Meyers says. “What is the chance if we fall pregnant again, this going to happen to us again?”
Baby Krystal was stillborn at 28 weeks.
This is any parent’s worst nightmare.
Robynne Cooke, general manager of Liverpool Hospital, say that her and her team “got it wrong” and have since apologised to Ms Pirko and Mr Meyers while offering ongoing support.
“I am so sorry that we let them down,” she says.
This, however, is not enough, says Mr Meyers. “For us, an apology is not going to bring our baby back, an apology is not going to give us answers.”
Their trauma means the couple’s wedding has been put on hold indefinitely while Ms Pirko sees a psychologist for post-traumatic stress. She fears she may never fall pregnant again.
“It has impacted our lives, in a dramatic and horrific way,” she says.
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