A review into the circumstances that led up to the alleged murder of a Western Australian woman has recommended protocols be established for people who leave hospital emergency departments without being assessed.
The Root Cause Analysis looked at the case of Joan Hendry, who was allegedly killed by her son Gabe in December 2014 after she sought to have him assessed for mental illness.
Ms Hendry had taken her son to Fremantle Hospital but they left before he was assessed.
WA Mental Health Minister Helen Morton said one of the review’s recommendations was that if a person with a potential mental health issue had made a phone call to a mental health clinic, before attending an emergency department, those details must be shared.
“If a person has made a telephone call to the Alma Street Centre [a Fremantle-based mental health clinic] and subsequently went to an emergency department, there needs to be a level of communication between the Alma Street Centre and the emergency department, there has to be some mechanism by which that channel of information may be made,” she said.
“There needs to be some way of ensuring that the information that’s gathered via the original phone call is transferred to whichever emergency department that person eventually goes to.”
Ms Morton said this would make it possible to compare the symptoms before and after presentation at a hospital, and the information would be important if someone was, for example, agitated or delusional when the phone call was made.
“The other situation is that the channel of communication would be used to confirm that the person perhaps wasn’t in an agitated state and that the level-four triage is an appropriate one to be given,” she said.
“So those are the sort of benefits that would come out of ensuring that that communication is made.”
‘Fully and properly’ assessed at emergency departments
The Minister said working out ways to follow up cases of people who leave emergency departments without being assessed was also recommended.
“What happens if someone goes to an emergency department, is given a low-urgency triage score and is waiting for an hour or more and subsequently leaves without being seen and assessed?” Ms Hendry said.
“What form of follow-up should take place? Especially if they have come in with a potential mental health problem.
“The development of that protocol is underway at the moment.”
With the closure of the emergency department at Fremantle Hospital, and the opening of Fiona Stanley Hospital in the Perth suburb of Murdoch, the Alma Street Centre will be opening from 8:00am to 10:00pm.
This means someone seeking an assessment, with no prior history or contact, can be assessed later than before, although they would most likely be transferred to an emergency department at the initial stage.
“It’s important that people understand that the symptoms, things like delusions, hallucinations, agitation, and people being withdrawn, suicidal ideation, those symptoms are common to a number of different conditions,” Ms Morton said.
The Minister said an emergency department was where people could be fully and properly assessed, especially for drug-induced psychosis.