New Cairns mental health unit years overdue, ‘unsafe’
Cairns Hospital’s new $70m mental health unit is nearly three years overdue and won’t have the key safety measures that scared nurses insist are essential for their protection.
Cairns Hospital’s new $70m mental health unit is nearly three years overdue and won’t have the key safety measures that fearful nurses insist are essential for their protection.
In a wide-ranging interview with The Australian, Cairns and Hinterland Hospital and Health Service chief executive Leena Singh also conceded it was “not at all” ideal to treat a 13-year-old autistic girl in the psychiatric intensive care unit (PICU) with two unguarded Lotus Glen prisoners.
Whistleblower nurses revealed they had been repeatedly assaulted and threatened with murder and rape by patients, including prisoners, in the far north Queensland public hospital’s mental health ward.
They are pleading for the prisoners – called “classified” mental health patients – to be guarded by corrective services officers, and for at least one permanent hospital-trained security guard to be stationed in the PICU around-the-clock.
Ms Singh told The Australian that many of the nurses’ safety concerns would be ameliorated when the hospital’s new $70m mental health ward opened doors to patients at the start of next year.
“(It) has a lot more modern spaces that allows people to self-regulate; it’s got greater access to outdoor secure areas; people are able to get fresh air (and) sun,” Ms Singh said.
“If you feel like you’re locked up and you can’t go anywhere, your level of tension and aggression increases. By moving to this new place … that will reduce the level of aggression we’re seeing.”
Funded by the state government, the new unit was originally due to open in February 2022, but Ms Singh said it had been delayed by cyclones and flooding.
Nurses said their calls for the new building to have fully enclosed nurses’ stations, to protect the workers from patients leaping over the counters or throwing projectiles at staff, had been ignored.
Ms Singh acknowledged the new build’s plans had been drawn up six years ago, before she started in the role, and said it was too late, and would be too expensive, to change.
She said the clinicians who designed the building did not feel it was necessary to have high-walled or enclosed nurses’ stations.
“(It was designed) trying to create a therapeutic environment, rather than, you know, a Fort Knox-type environment. Fast-forward six years since the planning, there has been some concern around the height of the station.”
Ms Singh said there would be a review six months after moving into the new building to make sure it had been appropriately designed and “if not, then we will make the necessary adjustments”.
The new facility will have 53 mental health beds, five more than the current psychiatric wards.
In a recent case that shocked nurses, a 13-year-old autistic girl was admitted to the 10-bed PICU with two Lotus Glen prisoners, and was observed repeatedly hugging one of them.
Ms Singh agreed it was “not at all” ideal and said young people were only admitted into the PICU when it was absolutely necessary, and were constantly accompanied by a carer.
“There are times where we do need to, unfortunately, admit a young person into our PICU, and that’s because we don’t currently have an adolescent mental health ward,” she said.
Health Minister Shannon Fentiman announced in May that the government would spend $24m on refurbishing the existing adult mental health ward to deliver an eight-bed youth mental health unit for Cairns, which would accept patients “later in 2025”.
Premier Steven Miles, in Cairns on Friday, conceded he was concerned that children were being exposed to criminal offenders in the PICU, but would not answer a question about whether the Mental Health Act should be changed to allow jail officers to guard prisoners in public hospital psychiatric wards.
In other hospital wards, prisoners are constantly escorted by at least one prison guard, and are shackled to their beds.
Do you know more? Confidentially contact elkss@theaustralian.com.au
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