Hospital Miscarriage Inquiry Ignored Patients
Sydney Morning Herald
Saturday October 27, 2007
AN INQUIRY into the treatment of Jana Horska has been branded a farce by the NSW Opposition after it failed to interview any patients at Royal North Shore Hospital at the time of Ms Horska's miscarriage and made recommendations such as hospital toilets should be "clean".
But the authors of the Government's report confirmed a key reason that Ms Horska was left for an hour and 20 minutes in the waiting room at the hospital before she miscarried was because all the beds were full.Late yesterday afternoon, after Ms Horska's solicitor received the report by Professor Cliff Hughes and Professor William Walters, it was released to the media by the Health Minister, Reba Meagher.Neither Ms Horska nor her partner, Mark Dreyer, were interviewed for the report, after they declined through their solicitor to co-operate. Mr Dreyer has previously called for a fuller inquiry."The report found care was delayed because it was a particularly busy night at the emergency department," Ms Meagher said. Ms Horska's case made headlines last month when she and Mr Dreyer claimed she was virtually ignored by hospital staff before she miscarried in a toilet. Ms Meagher established the inquiry into the miscarriage under Professor Hughes, the head of the Clinical Excellence Commission, and Professor Walters, the head of the Royal Hospital for Women, Randwick. The professors admitted yesterday they did not interview patients who were in the emergency department at the time. But the minister and the professors claimed the report was not "one-sided" as they had access to case notes.The report's recommendations include that the word "triage" be changed to "priority", and that an area called "admission desk" be known as "reception" and that there be a "reception area" instead of a "waiting room".The Opposition's health spokeswoman, Jillian Skinner, said the recommendation would simply mean that "you're having a miscarriage in an admissions centre rather than a waiting room".Another recommendation is that "public toilets in emergency departments be clean, in close proximity to the waiting room and have a call button".The report found that Ms Horska arrived at Royal North Shore's emergency department at 7.11pm on September 25 with pelvic pain, was "triaged" and had her vital signs taken at 7.23pm. Ms Horska was identified as having a condition "consistent with a threatened miscarriage". About 7.45pm Mr Dreyer approached the triage desk to "express concern about how long she had been waiting".At 8.45pm Mr Dreyer signalled to the triage nurse, "who followed him into the toilet adjacent to the [emergency department]. She found the patient had miscarried in the cubicle and was holdingthe foetus."All 26 adult emergency beds were full. The report found that staff "working in the emergency department ... acted appropriately within existing protocols" and that new models of care should be developed concerning miscarriages or threatened miscarriages (which the Government has already done).Cry from the battle - Page 27
© 2007 Sydney Morning Herald