A senior doctor who gave a scathing assessment of the commissioning and operations at Fiona Stanley Hospital has explained his concerns in a face-to-face meeting with Health Minister Kim Hames.
Dr Ian Jenkins delivered a damning critique of problems at the hospital when he gave evidence to a parliamentary inquiry last month, cataloguing a range of problems from a lack of leadership to ongoing IT failures.
Health Minister Kim Hames rejected the criticisms, but sought a personal meeting with Dr Jenkins, who works in intensive care at Fiona Stanley and Fremantle hospitals.
AMA WA president Michael Gannon said the meeting on Monday with Dr Hames and a senior hospital administrator allowed for an open exchange of views.
“The comments made by Dr Jenkins were made in good faith. Equally, there was a desire on the part of everyone at the meeting to try an improve the situation wherever possible,” he said.
Information technology remains a serious problem at the hospital, according to the AMA.
“I think there’s no question that there needs to be ongoing improvements in ICT,” Dr Gannon said.
But he said those complaining about the inefficiency of current systems were not advocating a return to paper-based systems.
“Dr Jenkins’ evidence was based on fairly consistent commentary we get from doctors in training, senior doctors in the hospital – that the platforms as they exist are clunky, they are slow, there are shutdowns,” he said.
“There definitely needs to be some investment in the area to fix it.”
Hospital project drifted ‘way off track’, AMA says
In giving evidence to the parliamentary inquiry, Dr Jenkins described how a duress alarm system used by mental health staff was frequently unserviceable, forcing them to use handheld two-way radios.
Dr Gannon said the problems were a legacy of a project that drifted “way off track” two-and-a-half years ago, but was brought back into line by the work of acting director general Professor Bryant Stokes and new director general David Russel Weisz.
“They’re two of the people that got a contract and a commissioning process that was way off track back to a safe level,” he said.
Dr Gannon said some areas of contention remained unresolved at the meeting, in particular Dr Jenkins’ concerns about the lack of clinical consultation and leadership during the commissioning process.
“If Dr Jenkins said there hadn’t been enough leadership or there hadn’t been enough consultation with clinicians, it’s not surprising that medical administrators around the table, who were involved in commissioning at the hospital might have disagreed with those comments,” he said.
Dr Gannon said the AMA would continue to monitor the progress of improvements at Fiona Stanley Hospital and speak out on any perceived issues.