The serious clinical incidents between April 1, 2014, and September 28, 2015, have been revealed through a heavily-censored Right to Information report obtained by The Cairns Post.
About 70 per cent of the report was concealed by Queensland Health, including all but one cause of death.
Other missing details included a patient with a head injury for whom staff did not order the appropriate scan, and a person who was found dead “in the community” soon after being discharged.
However, Cairns Hospital chief executive Julie Hartley-Jones supported the restrictions on the document and said death or serious harm to patients while in the care of health staff was rare.
“During this 18-month period, Cairns Hospital provided more than 600,000 occasions of patient care, so the percentage of these incidents is extremely low,” she said.
“Having said that, we want to learn when things don’t go as expected and that’s why we have worked to develop a culture that encourages staff to report clinical incidents.”
A nurse who spoke on the condition of anonymity said incidents were more likely to happen in understaffed wards.
“Mistakes happen more often when you are busy, when you don’t have time to follow the proper protocols,” she said.
“And there are some nurses who can’t check on patients in the required time.”
She said falls and slips in the shower area happened “often”.
“With those major incidents, they (the patient safety team) have to investigate and they do stress there is a no-blame culture,” she said.
The nurse also told of “horror shifts” when workers called in sick but were not replaced.
Cairns Hospital’s director of nursing and midwifery, Andrea O’Shea, said safety reviews were rigorous.
“Cairns Hospital is actually below the state average for the number of falls. We assess patients for their risk of falling and action plans are put in place to prevent falls, such as extra nursing supervision and making sure people have mobility aids,” she said.
Deputy executive director of medical services Dr Paul Cullen said most care had excellent patient outcomes.
“The review of these incidents does not indicate negligence or fault,” he said.
“In fact, higher incident reporting rates are regarded as an indicator of a positive and transparent safety culture, rather than a sign of a less safe healthcare system.”
Ms Hartley-Jones said improvements had been made, including increasing frequency of nurse checks on patients.
She added affected families were always offered a meeting with the health service.
A spokeswoman from the Right to Information office said she was bound by law when preparing the report for The Cairns Post.
It is also believed the health service’s public relations and executive team reviewed the Right to Information report before its release to the paper.