❓ Mr. Taylor inquired about the flooding incidents at Fiona Stanley Hospital. The Minister for Health responded, detailing the cause, investigation, and actions taken to prevent future occurrences, including replacing faulty bellows and sourcing replacements locally.
AnsweredQoN 816Legislative Assembly
QuestionView source ↗
FIONA STANLEY HOSPITAL — FLOODING INCIDENT
816. Mr M.H. TAYLOR to the Minister for
Health:
I refer to the recent flooding incidents at Fiona Stanley
Hospital. What is being done to prevent this happening in the future?
816. Mr M.H. TAYLOR to the Minister for
Health:
I refer to the recent flooding incidents at Fiona Stanley
Hospital. What is being done to prevent this happening in the future?
AnswerView source ↗
Members
will recall that back in April one of the bellows at Fiona Stanley Hospital
ruptured. For those who do not know, a bellows is a flexible joint in a pipe
system that largely deals with heating throughout a building. It has hot water
flowing through it. The lining of the bellows split and water caused
significant damage to the building, particularly to one of the theatres and a
particular machine in that theatre, causing significant damage. Subsequent to
that—a month or so later—another smaller bellows ruptured. It
did not cause so much damage, but caused considerable disruption to the
hospital. The whole hospital system needed to be shut down for a time, and we
had to do a lot of work to ensure that patients were kept warm without a
heating system within the hospital.
An investigation was done on that incident. There were two
components to the investigation. One component was to investigate what went
wrong with the bellows, which were imported from the United States by the
company building the hospital. It was found that there was a fault in the
lining of the system that resulted in the split, and that currently is being
fully investigated. Insurance companies and the builder will deal with the
issues around costs relating to that problem. We decided that we needed to
remove the risk of further bellows ruptures from the hospital and 10 critical
areas were chosen where the bellows needed to be replaced. Our concern, of
course, was that we would again have to shut down the hospital for up to 48 hours
to allow us to replace those bellows. Instead, we found another way to do it,
by reducing pressure in the pipes and isolating those segments of the pipes,
and I am pleased to announce that all those 10 bellows have now been replaced.
I have to admit that I waited until the process was over before I told anybody,
just in case! The bellows were sourced from Western Australia; and it is timely
to wonder why they were not sourced from here in the first place. Those bellows
have been replaced and we did not need to shut down the hospital to do that
work. The work has already been done, and I think that is a great outcome for
Fiona Stanley Hospital.
will recall that back in April one of the bellows at Fiona Stanley Hospital
ruptured. For those who do not know, a bellows is a flexible joint in a pipe
system that largely deals with heating throughout a building. It has hot water
flowing through it. The lining of the bellows split and water caused
significant damage to the building, particularly to one of the theatres and a
particular machine in that theatre, causing significant damage. Subsequent to
that—a month or so later—another smaller bellows ruptured. It
did not cause so much damage, but caused considerable disruption to the
hospital. The whole hospital system needed to be shut down for a time, and we
had to do a lot of work to ensure that patients were kept warm without a
heating system within the hospital.
An investigation was done on that incident. There were two
components to the investigation. One component was to investigate what went
wrong with the bellows, which were imported from the United States by the
company building the hospital. It was found that there was a fault in the
lining of the system that resulted in the split, and that currently is being
fully investigated. Insurance companies and the builder will deal with the
issues around costs relating to that problem. We decided that we needed to
remove the risk of further bellows ruptures from the hospital and 10 critical
areas were chosen where the bellows needed to be replaced. Our concern, of
course, was that we would again have to shut down the hospital for up to 48 hours
to allow us to replace those bellows. Instead, we found another way to do it,
by reducing pressure in the pipes and isolating those segments of the pipes,
and I am pleased to announce that all those 10 bellows have now been replaced.
I have to admit that I waited until the process was over before I told anybody,
just in case! The bellows were sourced from Western Australia; and it is timely
to wonder why they were not sourced from here in the first place. Those bellows
have been replaced and we did not need to shut down the hospital to do that
work. The work has already been done, and I think that is a great outcome for
Fiona Stanley Hospital.
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