Tuesday, 16 November 2021

Williamstown Hospital

Dr CUMMING (Western Metropolitan) (23:16): (1637) My adjournment matter is to the Minister for Health in the other place, and the action that I seek is for the minister to clarify the restrictions on visitors for those in respite care. My constituent’s 96-year-old mother lives alone and had a fall at her home, sustaining a fracture. She has been placed in respite care for six weeks in the transition care program (TCP) ward in the Williamstown Hospital. My constituent, her siblings and other family members are stressed as they are not able to visit her. They have been advised by staff at the hospital that no-one at any time can visit her even though all family members are fully vaccinated, as well as their mother, yet the patient in the same room has her family come in and visit, taking the patient food throughout the week. She is placed on a seat for 3 hours, just staring out of her window. How is this fair? The family has also been advised to collect the dirty laundry from the hospital as that is not within the service of the hospital.

Confused by the whole situation, my constituent’s niece called to have this clarified and was advised by the staff members that the unit manager would call her back. She is still waiting for that call. In the meantime she called back the TCP ward and spoke to the nurses station, as the unit manager had left for the day. He showed no compassion at all and confirmed all information was correct and it was hospital policy. The option of seeing her in a waiting room or a garden was denied. The only time they could possibly see her was on compassionate grounds—in other words, if she was on her deathbed. She called the patient representative department at Western Health, who advised her they could call the hospital to seek an exemption. Why are all of us vaccinated if we cannot spend time with our family when they are in need? Why aren’t facilities clearer on the restrictions? Doesn’t being the age of 96, turning 97, mean anything in the way of compassion? This bureaucratic nonsense must stop.