Four deaths while waiting in the emergency spur new hospital construction

By Dr. Ananya Mandal, MDMay 18 2010

After the four recent deaths of patients in the emergency department there is a mass attempt to speed up the construction of the Sunshine Coast University Hospital in south-east Queensland.

One of the patients who died was 87 year old Neville Keith Evans who died on 9^th May from a heart attack while on a stretcher waiting for four hours for treatment at the Nambour Hospital. According to the Australian Medical Association of Queensland there were three similar deaths on the Sunshine Coast this year.

The Sunshine Coast Local Medical Association's Dr Wayne Herdy feels that opening the new public hospital at Kawana before 2016 should be the top priority now. “This highlights quite dramatically and quite shamefully the urgent need to create additional facilities on the Sunshine Coast…Especially getting the Kawana Hospital fast-tracked,” he said.

Opposition health spokesman Mark McArdle urged the hospital management to look into the incident. However Sunshine Coast health district chief executive officer Kevin Hegarty says that details cannot be divulged to the public since, “All patients are entitled to privacy, and that right is enshrined by law.” He added that, “Queensland Health is prohibited from commenting on any patient's medical treatment, unless the patient or their family consents…It is standard practice for deaths in care to be reviewed.”