ROYAL PERTH HOSPITAL — WAITING ROOM NURSES
284. Hon WILSON TUCKER to the Leader of the House
representing the Minister for Health:
I refer to reports in the media that
the waiting room nurse role at Royal Perth Hospital has been left unstaffed and
since 3 March, has been abandoned altogether, and I also refer to the
independent inquiry into Perth Children's Hospital that found that the
removal of the waiting room nurse resulted in a delay in comprehensive
assessment and may have also contributed to the death of Aishwarya Aswath.
(1) Since the inquiry's
report, how often has the waiting room nurse role been unstaffed?
(2) Is it
appropriate for a single nurse to cover both the main waiting room in the
hospital and the assessment emergency department marquee?
(3) What resourcing changes will be
made to ensure that the waiting room nurse role is always staffed?
Hon SUE
ELLERY replied:
I thank the honourable member for
some notice of the question.
(1)–(3) Request
for detailed workforce data should be placed on notice. The waiting room nurse
position is an important position to help
keep our patients safe. Currently that position plays a vital role in both
reviewing patients in the area and also performing the required rapid
antigen tests. Briefly, the position was moved to the COVID waiting room when
the pandemic numbers increased markedly. Subsequently, the role was expanded to
both the main waiting room in the hospital and the assessment ED marquee.