❓ A parliamentary question regarding stillborn deaths at King Edward Memorial Hospital, focusing on the implementation of previous inquiry recommendations and potential budget cuts. The Minister denies any negligence.
AnsweredQoN 29Legislative Assembly
QuestionView source ↗
I refer the minister to the Pepperell report into the recent stillborn deaths at King Edward Memorial Hospital tabled in the House today, which found - There were a number of system issues identified which, if they had been better defined and written into the Clinical Practice Guidelines, would have reduced the risk of the death of 3 of the 4 fetuses which died. (1) Can the minister confirm that this report indicates that not all the recommendations of the Douglas inquiry have been implemented, despite the former Minister for Health’s reassurance to this House on 18 June last year? (2) Can the minister also confirm that at least one of these recommendations - the recruitment of additional senior staff - was not implemented because of budget cuts ordered by this Government? (3) Will the minister now apologise to the families and admit that if his Government had implemented the Douglas inquiry recommendations, rather than misleading the community, these tragic deaths may have been avoided? Mr J.A. McGINTY
AnswerView source ↗
(1)-(3) The answers to the three parts of the member’s question are no, no and no. When the two tragic stillbirths occurred at the hospital at the beginning of this year, I moved immediately, once the second death had occurred, to inform the public of what had happened. I called a press conference for that purpose and I said on that occasion that we would be shining a light into the hospital and ensuring that we determined exactly what went on. The Pepperell report, which has been delivered very quickly, is, I believe, a warts-and-all description of exactly what went on in the hospital. It put the finger on the shortcomings at the hospital, in which clinical guidelines and communications were deficient, and pointed to exactly what happened. The observation made in the report about those deaths, which I read out this morning, states - There were a number of system issues identified which, if they had been better defined and written into the Clinical Practice Guidelines, would have reduced the risk of the death of 3 of the 4 fetuses which died. However, we were not happy with simply getting in quickly and telling the parents and the community what had gone wrong. We have also set in train a significant series of changes to minimise the prospect of this ever happening again and to establish world’s best practice at King Edward Memorial Hospital not only to ensure that these adverse effects do not occur again, but also so that in the future particularly mothers in Western Australia can be absolutely confident that they will receive world-class treatment at the primary maternity hospital in this State. That is exactly what we have done, and the way in which this matter has been dealt with should give all members of this House considerable encouragement about the future of King Edward Memorial Hospital.
(2) Can the minister also confirm that at least one of these recommendations - the recruitment of additional senior staff - was not implemented because of budget cuts ordered by this Government? (3) Will the minister now apologise to the families and admit that if his Government had implemented the Douglas inquiry recommendations, rather than misleading the community, these tragic deaths may have been avoided? Mr J.A. McGINTY replied: (1)-(3) The answers to the three parts of the member’s question are no, no and no. When the two tragic stillbirths occurred at the hospital at the beginning of this year, I moved immediately, once the second death had occurred, to inform the public of what had happened. I called a press conference for that purpose and I said on that occasion that we would be shining a light into the hospital and ensuring that we determined exactly what went on. The Pepperell report, which has been delivered very quickly, is, I believe, a warts-and-all description of exactly what went on in the hospital. It put the finger on the shortcomings at the hospital, in which clinical guidelines and communications were deficient, and pointed to exactly what happened. The observation made in the report about those deaths, which I read out this morning, states - There were a number of system issues identified which, if they had been better defined and written into the Clinical Practice Guidelines, would have reduced the risk of the death of 3 of the 4 fetuses which died. However, we were not happy with simply getting in quickly and telling the parents and the community what had gone wrong. We have also set in train a significant series of changes to minimise the prospect of this ever happening again and to establish world’s best practice at King Edward Memorial Hospital not only to ensure that these adverse effects do not occur again, but also so that in the future particularly mothers in Western Australia can be absolutely confident that they will receive world-class treatment at the primary maternity hospital in this State. That is exactly what we have done, and the way in which this matter has been dealt with should give all members of this House considerable encouragement about the future of King Edward Memorial Hospital.
(3) Will the minister now apologise to the families and admit that if his Government had implemented the Douglas inquiry recommendations, rather than misleading the community, these tragic deaths may have been avoided? Mr J.A. McGINTY replied: (1)-(3) The answers to the three parts of the member’s question are no, no and no. When the two tragic stillbirths occurred at the hospital at the beginning of this year, I moved immediately, once the second death had occurred, to inform the public of what had happened. I called a press conference for that purpose and I said on that occasion that we would be shining a light into the hospital and ensuring that we determined exactly what went on. The Pepperell report, which has been delivered very quickly, is, I believe, a warts-and-all description of exactly what went on in the hospital. It put the finger on the shortcomings at the hospital, in which clinical guidelines and communications were deficient, and pointed to exactly what happened. The observation made in the report about those deaths, which I read out this morning, states - There were a number of system issues identified which, if they had been better defined and written into the Clinical Practice Guidelines, would have reduced the risk of the death of 3 of the 4 fetuses which died. However, we were not happy with simply getting in quickly and telling the parents and the community what had gone wrong. We have also set in train a significant series of changes to minimise the prospect of this ever happening again and to establish world’s best practice at King Edward Memorial Hospital not only to ensure that these adverse effects do not occur again, but also so that in the future particularly mothers in Western Australia can be absolutely confident that they will receive world-class treatment at the primary maternity hospital in this State. That is exactly what we have done, and the way in which this matter has been dealt with should give all members of this House considerable encouragement about the future of King Edward Memorial Hospital.
Mr J.A. McGINTY replied: (1)-(3) The answers to the three parts of the member’s question are no, no and no. When the two tragic stillbirths occurred at the hospital at the beginning of this year, I moved immediately, once the second death had occurred, to inform the public of what had happened. I called a press conference for that purpose and I said on that occasion that we would be shining a light into the hospital and ensuring that we determined exactly what went on. The Pepperell report, which has been delivered very quickly, is, I believe, a warts-and-all description of exactly what went on in the hospital. It put the finger on the shortcomings at the hospital, in which clinical guidelines and communications were deficient, and pointed to exactly what happened. The observation made in the report about those deaths, which I read out this morning, states - There were a number of system issues identified which, if they had been better defined and written into the Clinical Practice Guidelines, would have reduced the risk of the death of 3 of the 4 fetuses which died. However, we were not happy with simply getting in quickly and telling the parents and the community what had gone wrong. We have also set in train a significant series of changes to minimise the prospect of this ever happening again and to establish world’s best practice at King Edward Memorial Hospital not only to ensure that these adverse effects do not occur again, but also so that in the future particularly mothers in Western Australia can be absolutely confident that they will receive world-class treatment at the primary maternity hospital in this State. That is exactly what we have done, and the way in which this matter has been dealt with should give all members of this House considerable encouragement about the future of King Edward Memorial Hospital.
(1)-(3) The answers to the three parts of the member’s question are no, no and no. When the two tragic stillbirths occurred at the hospital at the beginning of this year, I moved immediately, once the second death had occurred, to inform the public of what had happened. I called a press conference for that purpose and I said on that occasion that we would be shining a light into the hospital and ensuring that we determined exactly what went on. The Pepperell report, which has been delivered very quickly, is, I believe, a warts-and-all description of exactly what went on in the hospital. It put the finger on the shortcomings at the hospital, in which clinical guidelines and communications were deficient, and pointed to exactly what happened. The observation made in the report about those deaths, which I read out this morning, states - There were a number of system issues identified which, if they had been better defined and written into the Clinical Practice Guidelines, would have reduced the risk of the death of 3 of the 4 fetuses which died. However, we were not happy with simply getting in quickly and telling the parents and the community what had gone wrong. We have also set in train a significant series of changes to minimise the prospect of this ever happening again and to establish world’s best practice at King Edward Memorial Hospital not only to ensure that these adverse effects do not occur again, but also so that in the future particularly mothers in Western Australia can be absolutely confident that they will receive world-class treatment at the primary maternity hospital in this State. That is exactly what we have done, and the way in which this matter has been dealt with should give all members of this House considerable encouragement about the future of King Edward Memorial Hospital.
(2) Can the minister also confirm that at least one of these recommendations - the recruitment of additional senior staff - was not implemented because of budget cuts ordered by this Government? (3) Will the minister now apologise to the families and admit that if his Government had implemented the Douglas inquiry recommendations, rather than misleading the community, these tragic deaths may have been avoided? Mr J.A. McGINTY replied: (1)-(3) The answers to the three parts of the member’s question are no, no and no. When the two tragic stillbirths occurred at the hospital at the beginning of this year, I moved immediately, once the second death had occurred, to inform the public of what had happened. I called a press conference for that purpose and I said on that occasion that we would be shining a light into the hospital and ensuring that we determined exactly what went on. The Pepperell report, which has been delivered very quickly, is, I believe, a warts-and-all description of exactly what went on in the hospital. It put the finger on the shortcomings at the hospital, in which clinical guidelines and communications were deficient, and pointed to exactly what happened. The observation made in the report about those deaths, which I read out this morning, states - There were a number of system issues identified which, if they had been better defined and written into the Clinical Practice Guidelines, would have reduced the risk of the death of 3 of the 4 fetuses which died. However, we were not happy with simply getting in quickly and telling the parents and the community what had gone wrong. We have also set in train a significant series of changes to minimise the prospect of this ever happening again and to establish world’s best practice at King Edward Memorial Hospital not only to ensure that these adverse effects do not occur again, but also so that in the future particularly mothers in Western Australia can be absolutely confident that they will receive world-class treatment at the primary maternity hospital in this State. That is exactly what we have done, and the way in which this matter has been dealt with should give all members of this House considerable encouragement about the future of King Edward Memorial Hospital.
(3) Will the minister now apologise to the families and admit that if his Government had implemented the Douglas inquiry recommendations, rather than misleading the community, these tragic deaths may have been avoided? Mr J.A. McGINTY replied: (1)-(3) The answers to the three parts of the member’s question are no, no and no. When the two tragic stillbirths occurred at the hospital at the beginning of this year, I moved immediately, once the second death had occurred, to inform the public of what had happened. I called a press conference for that purpose and I said on that occasion that we would be shining a light into the hospital and ensuring that we determined exactly what went on. The Pepperell report, which has been delivered very quickly, is, I believe, a warts-and-all description of exactly what went on in the hospital. It put the finger on the shortcomings at the hospital, in which clinical guidelines and communications were deficient, and pointed to exactly what happened. The observation made in the report about those deaths, which I read out this morning, states - There were a number of system issues identified which, if they had been better defined and written into the Clinical Practice Guidelines, would have reduced the risk of the death of 3 of the 4 fetuses which died. However, we were not happy with simply getting in quickly and telling the parents and the community what had gone wrong. We have also set in train a significant series of changes to minimise the prospect of this ever happening again and to establish world’s best practice at King Edward Memorial Hospital not only to ensure that these adverse effects do not occur again, but also so that in the future particularly mothers in Western Australia can be absolutely confident that they will receive world-class treatment at the primary maternity hospital in this State. That is exactly what we have done, and the way in which this matter has been dealt with should give all members of this House considerable encouragement about the future of King Edward Memorial Hospital.
Mr J.A. McGINTY replied: (1)-(3) The answers to the three parts of the member’s question are no, no and no. When the two tragic stillbirths occurred at the hospital at the beginning of this year, I moved immediately, once the second death had occurred, to inform the public of what had happened. I called a press conference for that purpose and I said on that occasion that we would be shining a light into the hospital and ensuring that we determined exactly what went on. The Pepperell report, which has been delivered very quickly, is, I believe, a warts-and-all description of exactly what went on in the hospital. It put the finger on the shortcomings at the hospital, in which clinical guidelines and communications were deficient, and pointed to exactly what happened. The observation made in the report about those deaths, which I read out this morning, states - There were a number of system issues identified which, if they had been better defined and written into the Clinical Practice Guidelines, would have reduced the risk of the death of 3 of the 4 fetuses which died. However, we were not happy with simply getting in quickly and telling the parents and the community what had gone wrong. We have also set in train a significant series of changes to minimise the prospect of this ever happening again and to establish world’s best practice at King Edward Memorial Hospital not only to ensure that these adverse effects do not occur again, but also so that in the future particularly mothers in Western Australia can be absolutely confident that they will receive world-class treatment at the primary maternity hospital in this State. That is exactly what we have done, and the way in which this matter has been dealt with should give all members of this House considerable encouragement about the future of King Edward Memorial Hospital.
(1)-(3) The answers to the three parts of the member’s question are no, no and no. When the two tragic stillbirths occurred at the hospital at the beginning of this year, I moved immediately, once the second death had occurred, to inform the public of what had happened. I called a press conference for that purpose and I said on that occasion that we would be shining a light into the hospital and ensuring that we determined exactly what went on. The Pepperell report, which has been delivered very quickly, is, I believe, a warts-and-all description of exactly what went on in the hospital. It put the finger on the shortcomings at the hospital, in which clinical guidelines and communications were deficient, and pointed to exactly what happened. The observation made in the report about those deaths, which I read out this morning, states - There were a number of system issues identified which, if they had been better defined and written into the Clinical Practice Guidelines, would have reduced the risk of the death of 3 of the 4 fetuses which died. However, we were not happy with simply getting in quickly and telling the parents and the community what had gone wrong. We have also set in train a significant series of changes to minimise the prospect of this ever happening again and to establish world’s best practice at King Edward Memorial Hospital not only to ensure that these adverse effects do not occur again, but also so that in the future particularly mothers in Western Australia can be absolutely confident that they will receive world-class treatment at the primary maternity hospital in this State. That is exactly what we have done, and the way in which this matter has been dealt with should give all members of this House considerable encouragement about the future of King Edward Memorial Hospital.
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