Opposition health spokesman Roger Cook has called for the sacking of Health Minister Kim Hames following reports of an elderly patient being abandoned for eight hours in a gym at Fiona Stanley Hospital.
It has been reported that a man in his 70s with acute renal failure was moved from a ward at 3.30am on Monday and, for the next eight hours, put in a physiotherapy gym.
The man’s friend was “dumbfounded” to find him there when she visited, and told The Sunday Times how the man, bedridden and attached to a urinary bag, could not reach a water jug placed too far from his bed.
“I can’t believe that a seriously ill and elderly patient would be moved from a ward in the middle of the night and be taken to a physio gym,” the friend, Patricia, was quoted.
“I was shocked to find my friend tucked behind a curtain at one end of the exercise room which had no windows, no bathroom and no medical electronics. He was given a small green bell to use if he needed attention … but no one came.”
Mr Cook said he was “gobsmacked” by the news.
“I’ve heard of corridor care but I’ve never heard of gym care,” he said.
“It’s extraordinary that you could spend $2 billion on a world-class hospital, the jewel in the crown of WA health, then be moving patients into the gym and pulling a curtain around them.
“Less than 24 hours ago, Kim Hames said everything was now under control at Fiona Stanley.
“This isn’t the standard of care we expect in a state like WA.”
Mr Cook said the state needed a dedicated health minister, not one also responsible for the tourism portfolio.
“What will it take for the Premier to act?” he said.
Dr Hames responded that the situation had arisen when a surge in patients had led to a need to transfer the overflow to Fremantle Hospital, but this had not occurred quickly enough.
He understood it was the first time such an incident had occurred but even once was not appropriate or satisfactory.
“Clearly it’s not an adequate situation,” he said.
He dismissed the call for his head, saying his tourism portfolio responsibilities occurred at largely different times to his health duties, and added that it was unreasonable to expect that nothing would ever go wrong in a health system looking after millions of patients.
He was, however, “not very happy” about the news and he expected to be making further contact with the patient about the matter.
The news comes days after a parliamentary committee handed down the findings from the latest investigation into the beleaguered new hospital, stating patients had been put at risk since it opened in October 2014.
Failures reported in patient care have included patients given the wrong medicine, or wrong doses of the right medicine, or even epidural drugs being injected into veins; patients being injured in falls; a woman needing an emergency caesarean section because medical staff had not managed the falling heartbeat in one of her twins; patients left lying in dirty beds and given the wrong food or no food at all.
A coronial inquiry is due to begin soon over the death of Jared Olsen, 41, who was given the wrong medicine while being treated for inflammatory bowel disease, and died less than a month later.