The mother of a 21-year-old woman who died after receiving the Moderna Covid vaccine has received a painful reminder a year after the tragedy.
Natalie Boyce, 21, died in March 2022 at Melbourne’s Alfred Hospital, five weeks after receiving a booster dose of the Moderna Covid vaccine and the case is now before Melbourne Coroner’s Court.
Natalie’s mother, Deborah Hamilton, has become a fierce opponent of vaccine mandates, claiming her daughter was forced to do so by a part-time employer and by Melbourne’s Deakin University, which made it a condition of being on campus.
“I hold those promoting vaccines responsible for the death of my healthy daughter,” Hamilton told a parliamentary inquiry in 2023.
“This same GP, on February 24th of this year, almost a year after his death, callously texted me to get my booster shot on February 24th,” Hamilton said.
“For them, money is obviously more important than people’s lives. This text caused me great emotional stress.”
In her 20-minute testimony, which Ms. Hamilton later said was attended by only six senators, the grieving mother told a harrowing story of her family’s suffering.
Ms Hamilton said Natalie, whom she described as a hard-working student pursuing a double degree in law and business, fainted the day after receiving one Moderna shot, after two Pfizer shots, at a pharmacy.
Natalie Boyce, 21, died in March 2022 at Melbourne’s Alfred Hospital, five weeks after receiving a booster dose of the Moderna Covid vaccine.
“I called the COVID vaccine line for help, but they were totally unhelpful,” Hamilton said.
“His response was to call an ambulance if he thought he needed one.”
Natalie began to suffer from fever, stomach pain and vomiting, which her GP and later a local hospital misdiagnosed as reflux.
As Natalie was not improving, Ms Hamilton decided to take her to Melbourne’s Monash Hospital, which she called “the biggest mistake of my life”.
“This major Victorian public hospital was a complete disaster,” he said.
Ms Hamilton said she had to explain to the nurse on duty that Natalie had antiphospholipid syndrome and even put it into words.
Despite being vaccinated against Covid three times, Ms Hamilton was not allowed to accompany her daughter into the wards under pandemic regulations in force at the time.
“I still have text messages from her on my phone, begging me to go and be with her as everyone else was allowed to have someone with them,” Hamilton told parliament.
During her final weeks of life at Melbourne’s Alfred Hospital, Natalie’s heart and kidneys failed.
“This still haunts me today, and probably will for the rest of my life.”
Ms Hamilton claims Monash Hospital left Natalie “sitting in a chair for eight hours with a drip in her arm and a full vomit bag”.
“She was humiliated and it turned out she had severe heart failure, but the staff ignored her,” Hamilton said.
‘They also misdiagnosed her and sent her home after about 16 hours.
Doctors said they were seeing a lot of these reactions after COVID vaccines, especially a messy-looking liver on an ultrasound.
‘But they did nothing for her. They didn’t examine her heart despite all the signs and sent her home with a report saying she looked fine and that she should see a GP in a week.’
Ms Hamilton said that 36 hours later Natalie was in extreme pain and had difficulty breathing so she called triple 0.
“I can’t believe how the ESTA call operator treated me,” Hamilton told Parliament.
‘I told him my daughter has antiphospholipid syndrome, which is a blood clotting disorder, and that I thought she had blood clots in her lungs.
‘As Natalie was still conscious, the operator dismissed me and refused to mark the call as Code 1 and send an ambulance immediately.’
The operator told an increasingly frantic Ms Hamilton that a paramedic would call her within half an hour to assess whether an ambulance should be sent.
“I then made the decision to take her to Mulgrave Private Hospital,” Hamilton said.
Deborah Hamilton told the heartbreaking story of Natalie’s death in parliament last year.
She said that upon arrival, as Natalie “went in and out of consciousness,” they still had to follow protocols and wait 15 minutes for a negative COVID test result before any medical person could see her.
After a doctor “immediately diagnosed” Natalie as suffering from severe heart failure, it was decided she needed to go to The Alfred Hospital for intensive care.
Ms Hamilton said she was “disgusted” to learn “that Victoria’s largest ambulance service did not have the equipment necessary to transport her”.
After chasing the ambulance, Ms Hamilton arrived at the Alfred at around 2.30am but was told she could not keep Natalie and had to go home due to Covid rules.
“I was very distressed because, once again, the fact that I was vaccinated meant nothing,” Hamilton said.
“I was a wreck and had to drive home for about 40 minutes. To this day, I don’t know how I got home in the state I was in.”
Natalie Boyce spent three weeks unconscious in the ICU at the Alfred Hospital as her heart and kidneys failed and her foot turned black from a blood clot.
He died while undergoing an MRI on March 27, 2022.
Australia’s medical watchdog, the Therapeutic Goods Administration, later listed Natalie as a vaccine-caused death, one of 14 Australian deaths attributed to vaccines and the only one attributed to Moderna.
For the first fortnight in ICU, Ms Hamilton was only allowed to visit Natalie for an hour three days a week, but was then allowed to visit her for an hour each day.
Ms Hamilton said she was outraged to learn the rules were completely different for then Victorian Premier Danial Andrews.
Ms Hamilton said she was outraged to learn the rules were completely different for then Victorian Premier Danial Andrews, who was in the same hospital recovering from a fall down a staircase.
“A nurse at Alfred told me that Daniel Andrews was allowed to have visitors whenever he wanted, with no time limit,” Hamilton said.
‘My daughter was seriously ill and I was not allowed to be with her, but the Victorian Premier was always welcome to have visitors for as long as he wanted.’
He said communication was poor at all the hospitals involved in the ordeal.
“During my hour-long visits I was told she had been resuscitated several times, but no medical professional had bothered to call me to let me know,” Ms Hamilton said.
‘On another occasion, I arrived and found out that Natalie had been put on dialysis, but no one from the Alfred had called me to tell me about it.
“It was distressing and shocking to arrive and see more machines connected to my daughter.”
She said that since her daughter’s story became public, many other people have contacted her alleging vaccine injuries.
Ms. Hamilton called for the Moderna vaccine to be withdrawn from the marketimmediately so that no other person dies from it.’
“Natalie’s death has devastated my life and has severely impacted her brother, Hayden, and the rest of my family’s lives,” Hamilton said.
“We were a united and loving unit that is now shattered.”
The matter will return to the Coroner’s Court for another hearing in October.