Maria Badua: Husband Anton Baldon questions where it all went wrong after losing first child

A husband who lost his unborn child faces the agonising reality of losing his wife too as she lies unresponsive in a Perth hospital with doctors unable to do anything further for her. Three months on from the tragedy, Anton Baldon can’t stop replaying the night his life was turned upside down. Amid a sea of grief and trauma, seared clearest into the Filipino national’s memory are the precious minutes he spent watching as his pregnant wife — who was suffering symptoms of a stroke — was told to walk from their third-floor Bunbury apartment to a waiting ambulance. The catastrophic brain haemorrhage has left Maria Badua immobile and requiring breathing and feeding assistance. She miscarried three days after the incident, leaving her heartbroken husband Anton Baldon robbed of both his wife and his first child. He also has a medical bill in excess of $50,000 and mounting. Mr Badua’s hurt is compounded by what he believes is another instance of poor treatment in WA’s health system, a waste of valuable minutes and a denial of dignity in his wife’s hour of greatest need. Ms Badua was 20 weeks pregnant when she woke up to use the toilet at her Bunbury apartment around 2.30am on April 17. Her husband — an international student and cook at seafood chain The Cray — had arrived home not much earlier. He remembers his wife losing her balance and falling to the floor on the way back from the bathroom. Unable to lift herself and complaining of pain in her head, a panicked Mr Baldon called first his mother-in-law — who lives in Donnybrook — and then triple-zero. St John logs show an ambulance arrived 10 minutes after the initial call at 2.43am. Paramedics checked Ms Badua’s blood pressure and were told she was being treated for hypertension — a condition she had developed during her pregnancy. Mr Baldon claims the medicos told his wife, while she was lying on the bedroom floor, to stand up and walk down the apartment’s three flights of stairs to the waiting ambulance. As Mr Baldon spoke to paramedics, Ms Badua began vomiting and experiencing seizures. In a complaint sent to recently installed WA Health director general Shirley Bowen, Mr Baldon detailed some of his exchanges with the professionals sent to help. “We (were) asking them to take her immediately because she is already vomiting and complaining about the pain in her head,” he wrote. “(One of the paramedics) took her blood pressure and found it high. I asked them if they have any lifting equipment so we can lift my wife and the (other paramedic) said: ‘No mate she can walk, trust me (people with high blood pressure) can walk’”. With no lift in the building, Mr Baldon claims the paramedics told him they were worried about hurting themselves by carrying his wife down the stairs. He said one of the paramedics then took his wife’s arm and attempted — but failed — to pull her to her feet. “I got upset. I told them she is pregnant,” Mr Baldon said. The back and forth with paramedics meant Mr Baldon’s mother-in-law arrived at the apartment from her home in Donnybrook — a half-hour drive — while paramedics were still on the scene. It was around that point that Mr Baldon and one of his co-workers, from the apartment below, lifted Ms Badua and carried her out to the staircase. Mr Baldon said paramedics then went to get a wheelchair specifically designed for the task. The ambulance then left without Mr Baldon or Ms Badua’s mother in the vehicle with her. St John WA said the organisation’s thoughts were with Ms Badua and her family and said paramedics had “provided appropriate on-scene care”. “A review of this case found no clinical or other concerns with the handling of this incident,” a spokesperson said. “St John WA met with Ms Badua’s husband and mother, along with family advocate Suresh Rajan, on Monday, July 1 to provide clarity for all parties. Ms Badua arrived at Bunbury Regional Hospital at 3.43am, where a CT scan discovered bleeding on her brain. Her condition rapidly deteriorated and she was admitted to ICU, with Mr Baldon told she needed to be flown to Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital for specialist surgery. At 9am, Ms Badua was loaded onto a Royal Flying Doctor Service bound for Perth. A WA Country Health spokeswoman said the five-hour wait was the result of the “specialist and intensive care” required to stabilise Ms Badua before she could be transported. “The care provided to Ms Badua at Bunbury Regional Hospital was immediate, thorough and of an extremely high clinical standard — involving intensive care and emergency medicine specialists,” the spokeswoman said. “There was no delay in the patient transfer between Bunbury and the metropolitan area.” Having hitched a ride from Bunbury Regional Hospital to SCGH in a friend’s car, Mr Badua arrived at about the same time as his wife. He took a phone call requesting permission to begin emergency surgery in the SCGH parking lot. The neurosurgeon who operated on Ms Badua told Mr Baldon every second counted in reversing the devastating effects of a stroke. In a further tragic blow, Ms Badua miscarried on April 20. Today, Ms Badua remains in a high-dependency unit at SCGH. She is being kept alive through a tracheostomy that helps her breathe and food delivered directly to her stomach via a peg. She requires “high-level nursing care to facilitate all fundamental functions” with her consultant neurologist of the opinion “she will not improve from her current functional status and does not have any further rehabilitation potential”. Neither Ms Badua nor Mr Baldon are Australian citizens, meaning they do not qualify for either Medicare of NDIS. Their insurance has already been maxed out, and the out-of-pocket medical expenses for Ms Badua’s treatment have already barrelled past $50,000. They grow daily. A GoFundMe page set up to help offset some of those costs stood at just shy of $15,000 as of Saturday. Mr Baldon met with St John WA on July 1 to discuss his wife’s case, where he was told the ambulance provider had no issue with the care provided by its paramedics and that it was understandable they had not considered a stroke because Ms Badua was just 35 years old. But Mr Baldon, who is devastated at the tragic turn of events, is still looking for answers. “I asked (the St John manager) if the way his paramedics acted was acceptable to him and he said yes,’ Mr Baldon said. “He said he’s standing behind his people.”