An immune-deficient girl whose mother is accused of injecting her with urine says she never saw her mum use a syringe on a tube leading to a key vein.
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The 47-year-old mother, from NSW's Hunter region, has pleaded not guilty to using urine to endanger the life of her then-nine-year-old in March 2015.
In a circumstantial case, the Crown alleges the mother injected urine into her daughter's central venous line while the girl was in Sydney's Westmead Hospital for acute renal failure.
The now-14-year-old was asked by the accused's lawyer if she'd ever seen her mother use a syringe on her central line.
"No," the girl told Newcastle District Court on Tuesday.
The court has been told police found syringes and urine sample containers in the mother's handbag in March 2015, items the woman said she picked up in a rushed hospital transfer.
The girl, whose immunodeficiency is related to a genetic condition, was repeatedly admitted to Newcastle's John Hunter Hospital and Westmead from age two to nine.
A treating doctor has told the court the girl's presentations were more unusual as time went on.
The teenager on Tuesday said she'd had continued medical issues including "coughs for months" and regular episodes of diarrhoea in the five years since she was placed into foster care.
The Crown says the girl's condition has improved since 2015.
The court was shown video of the girl being interviewed by NSW child protection investigators at her hospital bed almost a week after the alleged poisoning in 2015.
Taking up less than half of the bed, the then-nine-year-old shook her head each time she was asked if her mum did anything that "you don't like".
She said her mum - a former nurse - would sometimes adjust the intravenous medication pump the girl was attached to in John Hunter.
"She knows what rates to put it at," she said.
"It's to get fluid in faster and slower when I don't need it."
But the pumps at Westmead were different, the girl said.
"We don't know how to use this one."
She said her mum didn't like going to the hospital and would say "we can't do this anymore, we have to get out of here".
The mother, who can't be named as it would identify her daughter, has also pleaded not guilty to two counts of using laxatives with intent to injure her daughter twice in 2014.
The trial is expected to resume on Wednesday.
Australian Associated Press
