NSW hospitals cable-tie sanitiser to walls as visitors steal supplies

Our state’s hospitals are not only in a desperate battle against COVID-19 infections but thieving visitors stealing precious supplies of hand sanitisers and face masks. It comes as top medicos warn doctors will die from infections. HOSPITALS HIT

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Hospitals have been forced to cable-tie hand sanitiser to the walls to stop thieving visitors stealing critical medical supplies.

Worse, masks and gloves have also been stolen, with some hospital staff declaring remaining stocks to be worryingly low.

Over at the Children’s Hospital Randwick, the theft of masks has forced to staff to use ones designed for children

Liverpool Hospital in Sydney’s south west where hand sanitiser has been stolen. Picture: Dean Asher

The thefts have occurred in both the city and the bush. Metropolitan hospitals to be hit include Liverpool, Macquarie University, Westmead and Royal North Shore.

Regional hospitals to have recorded thefts include Wollongong, Bulli District, Port Kembla, Belmont, John Hunter, Maitland, Singleton, Tweed and Maclean.

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The shortage of personal protective equipment has lead to dire claims from medicos that doctors will die.

Macquarie University Hospital at North Ryde and Liverpool Hospital both cable-tied sanitiser bottles to the walls, only for visitors to fill their personal sanitiser bottles from the hospital stock.

At Westmead, an entire trolley with personal protective equipment in a dedicated isolation room was taken, while a pallet of hand sanitiser at Singleton did not even make it to the hospital wards after being stolen.

At Maclean District, nursing staff were abused by a thief after they confronted him while he was cutting the cable ties securing the hand sanitiser.

Nurses have been forced to use childrens’ face masks at the Sydney children's Hospital at Randwick.

Also targeted has been the Royal North Shore Hospital at St Leonards. Picture: Flavio Brancaleone

Down in Bulli District, stock was stolen from the bedsides, corridors and main entrance with one thief snatching a bottle off a trolley while the cleaner was in the room.

Masks were stolen from Port Kembla Hospital with nursing staff reporting stores to be almost empty, while visitors took hand sanitiser from patients’ bedsides.

Some hospitals have cable-tied hand sanitiser to stop thefts.

Personal protective equipments including face masks have also been stolen from hospitals.

NSW Nurses and Midwives’ Association general secretary Brett Holmes said the theft of critical medical supplies was “not acceptable”.

“Unfortunately, we’ve heard of many instances where community members have been stealing bottles of hand sanitiser, face masks and other vital resources from our hospital wards, leaving nurses and other hospital staff exposed,” he said.

“This is not acceptable behaviour.”

DOCTORS WILL DIE

One Sydney hospital doctor, who asked not to be named, said “deaths will be inevitable” because the PPE was in such short supply, some doctors had taken to making their own “contraptions” from face masks, filters and tourniquets.

“There are many dead Italian doctors and that is soon to be us,” the doctor said.

One anaesthetist shared his makeshift face mask on a closed doctor group. “Like most of you (we have) little to no PPE. This is a contraption I made today with commonly available items from the resuscitation trolley. “Elastic straps from spotlights (sic) would be more comfortable than a tourniquet,” the doctor posted.

Another questioned if the Australian PPE that was available was up to standard after Italian emergency physician Dr Roberto Cosentini put a picture on Twitter of the superior PPE Italian medics were using in his hospital, where there was still a 5 per cent health care worker infection rate.

Doctors treat COVID-19 patients in an intensive care unit in Rome, Italy.

To date, 43 doctors have died in Italy, with 5000 doctors, nurses, technicians, ambulance staff and other health employees infected.

“The PPE handed out at present in Australian EDs is not meeting this standard. I’m not sure it this is because we simply don’t have enough or it is being held back for when it gets really bad. As an ED doctor I want the best protection possible, and I don’t understand why Australia is underperforming here,” an Australia doctor posted in response to Dr Cosentini’s picture.

The Royal College of Surgeons’ Dr Ken Loi said the recent federal government backflip on elective surgery put “commercial interests before patient safety” but also used up limited PPE.

“One sick COVID-19 patient in ICU will need 50, 60 gloves a day and the PPE demand is enormous. There is a shortage of PPE and no hospital or even the health department will tell us how much is in stockpile, will it last a week, or a month? We are all very concerned, we are trying to hold the Ministry (of health) to account to source out adequate protection for our members because if you can’t protect your health care workers, there will be no one looking after patients,” Dr Loi said.

AMA President, Dr Tony Bartone. Picture Kym Smith

Australian Medical Association president Dr Tony Bartone said it was “not good enough to not have the appropriate PPE, to go into battle on the frontline without the protection you need”.

“Unfortunately doctors are on the front line, and other health workers, are part of the statistics of COVID-19, that’s a given and it is inconceivable that they won’t be affected by COVID-19 here,” Dr Bartone said.

Deaths among health care workers have now been reported in the USA, France and the Philippines.

Originally published as NSW hospitals cable-tie sanitiser to walls as visitors steal supplies