Paediatric Cochlear Implant Program

Mrs HURN (Schubert) (14:25): My question is to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing. Who is leading the independent investigation into the cochlear implant program at the Women's and Children's Hospital, and when will the terms of reference and the timelines be made public. With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mrs HURN: On 20 March, the minister stated that an external review would be conducted by and I quote, 'an interstate expert'. On 5 April, the health chief, Dr Robyn Lawrence, told the media and I quote, 'Within the next 10 days we should be able to announce the panel and the time lines,' but almost a month later and there has been no information of the review released by the government publicly.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:26): I thank the member for her question. This is a very important topic because clearly there have been a number of children over the course of many years who have not received the appropriate care in the settings of their cochlear implants through the Women's and Children's Hospital, and we absolutely did commit that we needed to undertake an independent review in relation to how was this able to happen, how was this not detected, and how we can make sure that in the future we can improve systems so that this will not happen again.

I asked Dr Robyn Lawrence, who is the Chief Executive the Department for Health and Wellbeing, to contact and to find the best interstate experts because I believe that we needed somebody outside of the state to look at what the program had been here. She has been doing that work and we have got onboard a number of experts from Victoria who will be conducting this review. I understand a statement from her has either gone out or is in the process of being sent out right now.

I can inform the house that the people who are undertaking the review is Amanda Singleton from Victoria, who is a very experienced health practitioner and reviewer, having undertaken a number of reviews in similar clinical circumstances; as well as Associate Professor Tom Connell, who is the Chief Medical Officer at the Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne; as well as Associate Professor Anne Maree Keenan, who is the former deputy CEO of Safer Care Victoria, and Dr Jaime Leigh, who is the Cochlear Implant Clinical Lead at the Victorian Cochlear Implant Program.

So we have on board a group of very senior people who have the ability to look into all matters in relation to how this was able to occur over the course of many, many years. The department and the health network will be contacting families to let them know about this. Families will have the opportunity to have their say as part of that review and we have made very clear that that report will be made publicly available as well once it is completed.

In addition to that, interstate experts, I understand the majority from New South Wales, will be brought to be able to review children who have issues that have been identified and to have an independent review in terms of their clinical outcomes of what can be done in relation to assisting those families. So I absolutely feel for any family that is in this situation where, over the course of many years, they did not get the care that they needed through the hospital.

We are committed as a government to take this very seriously, putting in place that independent review and making sure that we can release that publicly, improve systems so that this can't happen to other people in the future.