8 February 2007

Massive cockup at Canberra Hospital

| johnboy
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The Canberra Times is leading with a picture of Kylie Minogue doing something in London for its readers who don’t want to buy the Women’s Weekly.

But they do have space on their website for a story on Canberra Hospital failing to clean the rectal suckers they use on unfortunate children.

As a result those children will need to be tested for Heps B and C as well as HIV. Parents are understandably distressed at having their 8 year olds HIV tested for all that a test does not equal having a disease.

They explained … they discovered last year that when they do a rectal suction biopsy with this tool that they’re using, it’s only sitting in a solution and they have been missing the process of having it steamed

Really fills you with confidence doesn’t it?

UPDATE: The ABC informs us that Queanbeyan hospital is getting a big upgrade, which might be a bit of a comfort.

ANOTHER UPDATE: The ABC reports that the hospital sat on the story for four months while figuring out which people needed to be contacted. Sounds like their record keeping is as terrifying as their sanitation.

Yet Another Update It’s interesting to consider that the delay in notification was essentially a cover-up of the poor record retrieval system, not the failed safety regime.

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I work in healthcare in the ACT – and we have been informed that ACT Health care costs are significantly higher than the rest of Australia – therefore we are facing budget cuts for the next few years. So we are being expected to provide for a growing community with less money! It is crap! However I do believe there is allot of mismanagement of health $$$.

Only JB could confuse “cock-up”s with rectal suction pipes…

The ward was clean

Unfortunately when it comes to hospital cleanliness, appearance is not necessarily the best indicator.

It was infuriating to hear that abject amateur Katy G try to justify why she took so long to release the info publicly when she had been briefed regarding it on numerous occasions prior to Xmas.

This government has no transparency and seemingly no accountability. They are an abject disgrace and do nothing but lurch from one display of incompetence to another. The lies Standope used to obviate himself from responsibilty during the bushfires are perpetuated by this government to this day.

TCH is definitely under resourced. As I keep telling people, I would rather drive across town to Calvary than 5 mins to TCH. Even when I’m having horrid contractions every five minutes and Caswell Drive is worse than usual because of the GDE roadworks.

Mrs Danman works @ TCh so I can make no comments on the calibre of their service as it would be subjective.
I will say however that she was in teh ER at TCH on one occasion (As a triage patient) and still had to wait 4 or so hours.

When I lived in Qbn by myself – I had a pretty bad medical incident. I lived about 1500m from Qbn hospital but still chose to drive myself (with a few “recreational” stops) to TCH ER

QBN hospital may get an upgrade but doesnt mean things will be any better there!

I had surgey mid last year at TCH and have to say it was a fantastic experience considering what I was having surgery for..
The ward was clean and the doctors / staff were exceptional and a wonderful help to me and others more unfortunate than myself!

VYBerlinaV8_now with_added_grunt1:03 pm 08 Feb 07

As far as I’m concerned, this make the Canberra Hospital public enema number one.

“As usual, you just have to bend over and accept it. Only difference now is that you have no idea how clean the tool is.”

Gets my vote for the tagline. Appropriate to this site as well as this article.

I should add that here in the ACT we seem to have it a little better than the States.

I dunno dude, once you can afford to get into a US hospital they’re pretty good at things like making sure the rectal suckers are clean.

VYBerlinaV8_now with_added_grunt9:58 am 08 Feb 07

“But they do have space on their website for a story on Canberra Hospital failing to clean the rectal suckers they use on unfortunate children.”

Snahon, good point about the civil unions. I would have thought those to whom gay marriage was applicable would understand how important it is to clean rectal suckers.

Perhaps a more focussed govt on healthcare instead of marriages (oops – civil union) may result in greater care, diligence and confidence in our existing health care system.

As usual, you just have to bend over and accept it. Only difference now is that you have no idea how clean the tool is.

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