Thousands of additional patients caught in Qld hospital bungle

Health Minister reveals thousands more patients have been caught up in Caboolture Hospital's scan crisis, two weeks after the issue first came to light.

Premier David Crisafulli and Minister for Health and Ambulance Services Tim Nicholls. Picture: Tara Croser

A major medical imaging bungle at a Queensland hospital has now affected an additional 3500 patients, two weeks after the issue came to light.

More than 12,500 patients will now be investigated as part of an urgent review into a system-wide error at Caboolture Hospital, which was only uncovered by the death of a cancer patient.

While announcing statewide investment into new CT and MRI machines, Health Minister Tim Nicholls confirmed the scope had widened from an initial 9000 patients to 12,529.

“Any patients who are likely to have been affected are in the process of being contacted, and we continue to work through that process,” he said.

“As you can imagine, the 12,000 patient records to go through, there is a substantial amount of work being undertaken in respect to that.”

This is despite Metro North Health chief medical officer Dr Elizabeth Rushbrook previously declaring she was “very sure” the maximum number of patients impacted was 9000.

“Nine thousand is the outside largest number. We don’t want to minimise this at all,” Dr Rushbrook told media two weeks ago.

The bungle was sparked by a clinical process change in 2023, and meant clinicians weren’t always alerted scans were ready and patients were left waiting weeks to hear about their results.

Since the review commenced, 69 per cent of images have been checked and cleared, including 81 per cent of high priority scans.

Only four patients have been contacted to arrange follow-up appointments and whether they are in a life-threatening situation because of the bungle is unknown.

A Metro North Health spokesman confirmed the review remains confined to Caboolture Hospital’s Specialist Outpatients Service.