A SafeWork SA inspection report which exonerates Noarlunga Hospital management of any breaches of health and safety legislation has drawn strident criticism from doctors.

Last week, InDaily reported on a South Australian Salaried Medical Officers’ Association (SASMOA) inspection of the hospital, which accused hospital management of several breaches of the Work Health and Safety Act – including an incident where no doctors were available to treat patients in the hospital’s crowded emergency department.

Other claims by Noarlunga Hospital doctors  included that mental health patients were being confined to windowless cubicles in the emergency department for several days, that chemical restraint of mental health patients was becoming increasingly frequent as a result of overcrowding, and that the hospital did not have enough doctors to cope with demand safely.

In response to the SASMOA accusations, SafeWork SA inspected Noarlunga Hospital last week.

SafeWork SA inspector Sagar Saeed’s four-page report concludes that Noarlunga Hospital management had not breached the Work Health and Safety Act.

The findings were the result of meetings with hospital management – but not with other medical officers – and an inspection of the emergency department.

The report’s “Inspection Outcomes Summary” reads:

• Notices issued by inspector: None
• Decisions of the inspector under part 5 of the Work Health and Safety Act 2012 (SA): None
• Actions agreed to be taken by the duty holder: None
• … Compliance status of previously issued outstanding notices (if any): None
• Information and documents given to the duty holder: None

“I’m very concerned about what is not written in the SafeWork report regarding the Noarlunga Hospital,” said SASMOA spokesperson and inspector Bernadette Mulholland.

“We’ve identified health and safety issues under the legislation, and there appears to be no reply in relation to those particular issues raised.

“There appears to be quite a lack of information in the report as to what was reviewed, and I note that the people that were spoken to would appear not to be – with the exception of one – not medical officers.

“We have heard nothing as to the issues we have raised.

“This is quite an incomplete report.”

Principal Community Visitor Maurice Corcoran also criticised the lack of detail in the report, but praised staff at the hospital as “very competent, skilled and committed”.

“The report you forwarded to me seemed very hollow and didn’t really give a sense of how it was operating,” he told InDaily this morning.

Public Advocate John Brayley said that it was “difficult to make any comment about this report, because it contains few details”.

“It describes the process of the visit, but does not provide details of what matters were considered.”

Late this morning, SA Health released all of the SafeWork SA reports to InDaily regarding the hospitals which have been inspected by SASMOA over the past several months.

The SafeWork inspections of the Lyell McEwin Hospital, the Royal Adelaide Hospital, the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and the Modbury Hospital – the management of each accused of multiple breaches of the Work Health and Safety Act – similarly find no breaches of the Act.

However, in each of the reports, only hospital management appear to have been spoken to, and similarly to the Noarlunga Hospital report, many of the conclusive fields read: “none”.

Health Minister Jack Snelling used the Noarlunga Hospital SafeWork report to claim in parliament yesterday that “Noarlunga Hospital is a safe environment for patients, and staff”.

However, Mulholland questioned the credibility of SafeWork’s conclusions.

“What authority and what training do they have to say that those experiences that we’ve highlighted in the (SASMOA) report are okay?” she said.

“Are we going to have to wait for a death within these Emergency Departments for people to react?

“What is the standard of SafeWork SA in relation to health and safety issues, and is that comparable to the standards expected by the community?

In a statement to InDaily, a spokesperson for the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (SA Branch) said “intermittent inspections such as these do not necessarily provide a useful basis for decision making”.

“Even the busiest of emergency departments have quieter times as well as times of higher activity.

“The report of this visit may not accurately reflect activity in that department an hours later or an hour earlier – there is a need to look at activity, the environment and staffing issues over the course of the day and week.

“Naturally, the ANMF believes that any incident that threatens the health and safety of hospital staff or patients should be investigated by the appropriate authority as a priority.”

Consultation on SA Health’s Transforming Health discussion paper – which recommends that health services be consolidated in more specialised hospitals in order to reduce waiting times and rationalise resources – closes this Friday.

InDaily contacted SafeWork SA and the Australian Medical Association for comment.