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Cancer patients face big delays

Concerns: Cancer patients face big delays at FSH, says doctor. Picture: Nic Ellis/The West Australian

A major tragedy will happen if unsafe cancer services at Fiona Stanley Hospital continue, according to the hospital’s head of oncology.

Damning internal emails leaked to The Weekend West detail a litany of alarming concerns, including overworked staff and major delays in patients getting treatment.

In one email sent to hospital management last week, Andrew Davidson warned that very sick patients not due to have their first oncology consultation until May were being admitted to the hospital with complications.

“A major tragedy will occur if this scenario is allowed to persist,” Dr Davidson said.

“I repeat, there will be, if we continue as we are, major additional patient tragedies.”

He said the hospital was funded for 6700 patient consultations this year but was on target to handle 12,000.

The chemotherapy clinic was set up to give 50 treatments a day but was regularly doing 70 to 80.

It was revealed this week that Perth mother Megan Kemp, who has breast cancer, had been told she had to wait until May to have a mastectomy.

The hospital later agreed to bring forward the surgery.

The Australian Nursing Federation has also raised concerns about emergency department staffing and lack of parking.

WA secretary Mark Olson said the emergency department did not have enough doctors and nurses to cope and some had quit because they did not want to be responsible for a patient’s death.

Parking was chaotic, with staff struggling to find a bay, and advice that staff should catch public transport was a joke.

Mr Olson said media reports of attacks on women walking alone at night highlighted the dangers for nurses walking to trains or buses in the dark.

Australian Medical Association WA president Michael Gannon said the Government and previous director-general of health Kim Snowball had to take some responsibility for the problems, and not commissioning chief David Russell-Weisz, who joined later to rescue the project.

Shadow health minister Roger Cook said mismanagement had been a hallmark of the Government’s handling of the Murdoch project.

Dr Russell-Weisz said the number of cancer patients at the hospital was more than expected and some would be referred to Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital.

The hospital said an emergency department consultant had resigned and another had taken extended leave but they were being replaced, along with two extra registrars. It was trying to rectify parking pressures.

The Health Department said there was enough capacity across Perth to treat cancer patients but the opening of FSH and the move of chemotherapy services from Royal Perth and Fremantle hospitals had caused a short-term surge in demand at the new hospital.