Transforming Health reforms dragged into inquest for RAH stroke-patient deaths scandal
THE State Government’s Transforming Health reforms will form part of a coronial inquest into the deaths of two Royal Adelaide Hospital patients who suffered strokes when both specialists were on leave.
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THE State Government’s Transforming Health reforms will form part of a coronial inquest into the deaths of two Royal Adelaide Hospital patients who suffered strokes when both specialists were on leave.
On Wednesday, Coroner Mark Johns told a directions hearing that the reforms should not be excluded from the inquest into the deaths of Michael John Russell, 60, and Leslie Robert Graham, 87, in April.
The men suffered strokes after being admitted to the North Tce hospital when one blood-clot specialist was overseas and the other was on a fishing trip south of Adelaide.
“As far as Transforming Health is concerned, it’s a name we hear a lot of — I for one, don’t profess to have an understanding of what it all is,” he said.
“But whatever influence it has had on the state of INR services as at April is something we will need to go into.
“I don’t think we need to have some kind of comprehensive study into Transforming Health across the board.
“I think there are elements that would have nothing to do with this. But the extent it does influence the matter, I don’t want it to be excluded from consideration.”
INR Services refers to a specialist radiology procedure used to suction out a blood clot in the brain.
The hearing was also told there had been some delays in accessing a doctor’s work computer to gather evidence from his email.
“I do hope SA Health is providing appropriate resources to the task,” he said.
“SA Health is an organisation which consumes a very large proportion of the revenue of the state — obviously, it puts that to good and noble purposes.
“If any organisation could find the resources necessary to search a computer, it’s SA Health.”
Counsel assisting the coroner, Naomi Kereru, told Mr Johns she was still waiting on a number of statements.
Earlier this month, a directions hearing was told that oral evidence given during the upcoming inquest was “going to be more the source of the story”.
The coroner was previously told that health authorities had failed to act on a recommendation to hire a third stroke specialist at the RAH to perform the delicate clot-removal procedure.
A review of the neuro-interventional radiology service had called for the third specialist to be employed in 2013, four years before Mr Russell and Mr Graham died.
Mr Graham was admitted to the RAH on April 18 after suffering a stroke at home.
He was assessed as a suitable candidate for the clot retrieval procedure but one specialist was overseas and the other on a fishing trip, south of Adelaide.
A similarly qualified specialist was called in from the Flinders Medical Centre to perform the procedure but it proved unsuccessful.
Mr Russell was admitted to the hospital the same day suffering from a heart attack but had a stroke while undergoing a procedure to clear a blocked artery.
He was also worked on by the visiting specialist, who had been called back, but again the procedure proved unsuccessful.