Chemo cancer error: Patient paid, then gagged by Royal Adelaide Hospital

A STATE MP will ask Parliament next month to look at ways to override gag clauses, which have silenced a seriously ill patient caught up in the chemotherapy dosing bungle at the Royal Adelaide Hospital.

Generic photo of a hospital corridor. Picture: iStock

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A STATE MP will ask Parliament next month to look at ways to override gag clauses, which have silenced a seriously ill patient caught up in the chemotherapy dosing bungle at the Royal Adelaide Hospital.

Nick Xenophon Team MLC John Darley said the Government, through its hospital insurers, was silencing patients in the same way the churches shut down victims of the sex abuse scandals.

“It’s a continuation of the same theme really,” Mr Darley said. “I think there should be legislation or some action taken whereby people can speak out without fear of repercussions.”

When Parliament resumes on September 8 he will move for an Upper House legislative review committee to examine how to stop confidentiality agreements relating to matters of health and safety from preventing public accountability.

He will ask the committee to look at whether people forced to sign agreements could speak openly to a parliamentary committee, and look at the broader issue of whether gag agreements should in some circumstances be outlawed.

“Confidentiality agreements need to be overridden when the public interest is involved,” he said.

“Where it affects health and safety, I think there should be legislation or some way whereby people can speak out without fear of repercussions.”

He said this included the silencing by SA Health through the RAH insurers of a man in his 60s who received a lower dose of chemotherapy than he should have while being treated last year for acute myeloid leukaemia.

The man has since relapsed and is seriously ill. He received compensation from the RAH but had to sign a confidentiality clause to receive payment.

Cancer patients at Royal Adelaide Hospital and Flinders Medical Centre have been caught in a chemo bungle.

Asked why the RAH insisted on confidentiality, SA Health said it was “unable to comment” on individual patient compensation issues.

A medical negligence lawyer who declined to be named said it was common practice to use confidentiality agreements to shut down publicity to save reputations and protect those who were at fault.

“At the end of the day we all know that doctors make mistakes like everybody else and they should have to face the consequences,” the lawyer said.

“This person placed his whole life in the care of the treating doctors and while medicine has its limits, he expected they would be doing their absolute best for him.”

The Advertiser last week revealed 10 acute myeloid leukaemia patients at the state’s two biggest hospitals, the RAH and Flinders Medical Centre, received only half the recommended dose of the chemotherapy drug Cytarabine between July last year and January.

The underdosing during the consolidation phase of treatment was the result of a typing error in the treatment protocols referred to by doctors and pharmacists. It went unnoticed for six months and was detected in January this year.

Mr Snelling apologised for the mistake, saying “we are very sorry” it had happened.

All 10 patients were informed in March, two months after the error was uncovered.

Financial compensation is likely to be minor because of the difficulty of proving the damage done by a lesser dose to a seriously ill patient who already faced a high rate of relapse. SA Health also said there was a “lack of international consensus” as to the optimal dose of Cytarabine.

Victims of personal injury in SA are already disadvantaged compared with other states. Pain and suffering awards — payments for physical and mental pain — are lower than elsewhere and are decided by a judge according to a scale from one to 60.

A minor but ongoing injury such as whiplash would attract about $10,000 or less. In other states, compensation cases are heard by civil juries who tend to be more generous in granting significant amounts.

Since the mistake was uncovered, all treatment protocols at the RAH and FMC have been reviewed and new checks put in place requiring senior clinicians and pharmacists to double-check material after it has been entered into the system and not just before.

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