Report on hospital raises concerns

Bundaberg Hospital.

“IT does highlight a lot of issues around leadership, but leadership in many places,” director general of health Mick Reid said yesterday about the first report into the latest Bundaberg Hospital furore.

The comment was backed-up by the report from Dr Stephen Ayre, which directly commented on “the lack of medical leadership” and a “relative under-reporting” of clinical incidents by medical staff, who were reluctant to do so.

Despite this under-reporting, the hospital still matched-up with others in the state in relation to numbers of incidents reported - but the report again highlighted local deficiencies.

“Bundaberg records lower rates of feedback to staff compared with other hospitals,” Dr Ayre said.

Another point related to staffing pressures, stating: “A number of managers reported that high workloads often mean prioritisation of activities.”

Mr Reid and Kevin Hegarty, chief executive officer of the Sunshine Coast/Wide Bay district, flew into town again yesterday to deliver the report. They said communication and education had been identified as key areas of concern which needed to be fixed.

The PRIME system, brought in after the 2005 health crisis, also would have an overhaul statewide. Criticisms in the report pointed to a range of issues, with one manager admitting she found it difficult to review incidents and did so only “intermittently”.