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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2020-12-02 Daily Xml
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Women's and Children's Hospital

The Hon. C. BONAROS (15:13): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Health and Wellbeing a question about the Women's and Children's Hospital.

Leave granted.

The Hon. C. BONAROS: South Australians were shocked at the revelation last month publicly that four babies in four weeks had died at the Women's and Children's Hospital due to the lack of a paediatric cardiac surgery unit at the hospital, and various claims were made as to that being the reason for those deaths. These are deaths that those clinicians who have spoken out said could have been prevented at the hospital, had such a device existed there.

The government's response to what it described as a cluster of deaths was to undertake a review of the deaths. At the time, Chief Medical Officer, Dr Mike Cusack, who was to conduct the review, said it would take between two and four weeks to complete and that was some six weeks ago. My question to the minister is: has that review been completed? If so, are we likely to see the findings of that review and will they be made public? If it hasn't been reviewed or completed, why hasn't it been completed? Did the review canvas the issue of how SLSs are dealt with at the hospital, including downgrading of doctors' adverse incident reports by nurses?

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (15:15): Just to clarify, the common factor in relation to the cluster of deaths was whether or not an ECMO machine might have helped. My understanding is one of the cases wasn't related to a cardiac issue, it was related to another issue. My understanding is that clinicians were highlighting the possible benefit of the availability of an ECMO machine.

The honourable member is quite correct that the Chief Medical Officer is undertaking a review. I haven't had an update as to when that review will be available. The Chief Medical Officer, Dr Cusack, who was also a Deputy Chief Public Health Officer and is engaged in the pandemic response, is working with the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care in terms of looking at those cases. It is certainly my understanding that the report will look at care issues as well as incident reporting.

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