A Punchbowl couple is suing the Sydney Children’s Hospitals Network after their daughter was left permanently disabled by a brain injury they claim she suffered in its care as a newborn in 2019.
Now six years old, Tomi Onakoya has just learned to walk.
“She’s not talking yet, no words at all,” her mother, Olamide, told 9News.
“Tomi can’t do anything by herself, I feed her, bathe her, do everything.
“She’s happy because we show her love.”
Her injury is now the focus of a lawsuit in the Supreme Court against the Sydney Children’s Hospitals Network.
Tomi was born 10 weeks premature in February 2019 and spent months in different hospitals, including the Children’s Hospital at Westmead.
“Every day, we were in the hospital,” Olamide said.
“We trusted them so much.”
There, in April that year, Tomi’s father, Matthew, claims he watched a female health worker examine her.
“During that process, I saw my daughter’s head went like this, her head flip forward and backwards,” Mathew said.
Afterwards, Matthew claims doctors observed Tomi’s eyes rolling back in her head.
Three days later, she was discharged.
Then, after three weeks at home, Tomi had a medical episode, stopped breathing and started turning blue.
“I said to my wife, ‘get on triple zero, get the paramedics straight away’, we thought she was going to die,” Matthew said.
Tomi was taken back to Westmead, where doctors later discovered she had bleeding on the brain, which was described in a medical report as “highly concerning” for a “shaking injury”.
Matthew told 9News they were warned that hospital staff had called police.
“She said to me they’ve called the police and they’re coming for us,” he said.
“It was unbelievable, it was so unbelievable,” her mother said.
The NSW Police Child Abuse Unit investigated, but dropped the case, finding that “the injuries … cannot be linked to … when [Tomi] returned home.”
Police records show a doctor told officers, “whilst … it was likely not to have occurred in hospital, she was unable to rule out the possibility it was caused at one of the hospitals she has been at since birth”.
Matthew also wants the hospital to release all of Tomi’s medical records.
A spokesperson for the Sydney Children’s Hospitals Network told 9News “as this matter is before the court, we are unable to provide comment at this time”.
“I want justice for my daughter,” Matthew said.
“I can’t wait for that day when she can say mum, because I’ve poured all of my heart into looking after Tomi,” Olamide said.
It will be up to a Supreme Court judge to decide whether there is enough evidence to prove that the hospital is responsible for Tomi’s injury.
The case will return to court next week.
