❓ Mr. Love questions the Minister for Health regarding COVID-19 breaches at WA hospitals and the impact on hospital services. The Minister responds by thanking healthcare workers and highlighting the effectiveness of the systems in place for detecting and managing breaches.
AnsweredQoN 323Legislative Assembly
QuestionView source ↗
CORONAVIRUS —
HOSPITALS — BREACHES
323. Mr R.S. LOVE to the Minister for Health:
I
refer to recent COVID-19 breaches at Fiona Stanley Hospital, Geraldton Health
Campus and earlier at Royal Perth Hospital.
(1) Does the
minister agree with the Premier's assertion that a relatively small
hospital like Geraldton Health Campus could safely maintain normal services
when 24 staff were in quarantine, especially given current staff shortages?
(2) Does the
minister agree that it is unacceptable that breaches like these continue to be
made when he and his government have had 18 months in which to prepare?
HOSPITALS — BREACHES
323. Mr R.S. LOVE to the Minister for Health:
I
refer to recent COVID-19 breaches at Fiona Stanley Hospital, Geraldton Health
Campus and earlier at Royal Perth Hospital.
(1) Does the
minister agree with the Premier's assertion that a relatively small
hospital like Geraldton Health Campus could safely maintain normal services
when 24 staff were in quarantine, especially given current staff shortages?
(2) Does the
minister agree that it is unacceptable that breaches like these continue to be
made when he and his government have had 18 months in which to prepare?
AnswerView source ↗
(1)–(2) I
want to take the opportunity to thank all the doctors, nurses, hospital leaders
and the WA public—and particularly the Western Australia Police Force—for
the incredible work they have done over the past 18 months to make sure that Western
Australians live in one of the safest parts of the world with regard to
COVID-19. I want to thank all our health workers for the work they do, day in,
day out, under difficult circumstances,
dealing with some of the sickest patients in our system; and, in addition to that,
dealing with the added dangers associated with managing patients who are
COVID-19-positive. I want to commend them for their work. The number of
incidents we have had has been infinitesimally small. A small number of
incidents were discovered because of the failsafe systems we have in place, and
because of those failsafe systems, we were able to detect the breaches and get
the situation under control.
Maybe we could have swept this under
the carpet; maybe we could have pretended that the public did not have a right
to know about all these things. But as the member for North West Central said,
transparency is an important part of what we do in the WA health system. We
made sure that the public were aware of these breaches. We owned them and we
learnt from them. Each of those incidents were very individual in terms of the
circumstances that led to them and the breaches that they represented. In one
situation, it was simply a mechanical fault with the lifts at Fiona Stanley
Hospital. That was detected because we have spotters in place to ensure that we
understand whenever these breaches occur. We continue to learn from them and we continue to provide a great service on
behalf of the Western Australian community. I want to thank and commend
everyone in the health services, who have done such a great job to keep the
situation under control.
want to take the opportunity to thank all the doctors, nurses, hospital leaders
and the WA public—and particularly the Western Australia Police Force—for
the incredible work they have done over the past 18 months to make sure that Western
Australians live in one of the safest parts of the world with regard to
COVID-19. I want to thank all our health workers for the work they do, day in,
day out, under difficult circumstances,
dealing with some of the sickest patients in our system; and, in addition to that,
dealing with the added dangers associated with managing patients who are
COVID-19-positive. I want to commend them for their work. The number of
incidents we have had has been infinitesimally small. A small number of
incidents were discovered because of the failsafe systems we have in place, and
because of those failsafe systems, we were able to detect the breaches and get
the situation under control.
Maybe we could have swept this under
the carpet; maybe we could have pretended that the public did not have a right
to know about all these things. But as the member for North West Central said,
transparency is an important part of what we do in the WA health system. We
made sure that the public were aware of these breaches. We owned them and we
learnt from them. Each of those incidents were very individual in terms of the
circumstances that led to them and the breaches that they represented. In one
situation, it was simply a mechanical fault with the lifts at Fiona Stanley
Hospital. That was detected because we have spotters in place to ensure that we
understand whenever these breaches occur. We continue to learn from them and we continue to provide a great service on
behalf of the Western Australian community. I want to thank and commend
everyone in the health services, who have done such a great job to keep the
situation under control.
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