Child Death in Gloriavale That The Community Tried To Hide

A 14-year-old girl with Down Syndrome died choking on a piece of meat in Gloriavale while locked in an isolation room.

Prayer Ready was in an isolation room with the pins from the door handles removed so people could not get out of the room through the door when she choked on her dinner last year.

She was in the room with mother Sharon Ready and four other children and their father when she started choking, her aunts Polly Withington and Ruth Green told Fairfax.

Prayer's mother was unable to get out of the room and watched as her daughter died as the other adult tried to do the heimlich manouvre.

When that failed he crawled though a window and called for help. Other people arrived including Prayer's father Clem, but she was unable to be resucitated.

A former Gloriavale member told Fairfax sick people were kept in the isolation room to prevent illness spreading in the small West Coast Community.

It was not uncommon for the doors to be disabled.

A coroner's report into the death ruled it was a tragic accident and the coroner did not think the fact people could not enter or exit the room contributed to her death.

However Gloriavale said following Prayer's death it had stopped taking the pins out of isolation room door handles. It also argued that people could get out of the room for help because there was an open window.
Interim suppression on the coroner's report lapsed today.

- NZ Herald