At least one of four fresh reports of alleged serious sexual safety incidents involving young mental health patients reportedly occurred at Perth Children’s Hospital, the ABC can reveal.
The Mental Health Advocacy Service’s latest annual report, published on Tuesday, revealed four serious sexual safety issues were among 68 potential serious issues reported to the service involving children and young people in the 12 months to June 2023.
The Chief Mental Health Advocate for WA, Sarah Pollock, said one of them took place at the hospital this year, well after the alleged rape of a 13-year-old girl in January 2022 by another patient that sparked a major investigation by the hospital and independent observers.
She said the Mental Health Advocacy Service defined serious incidents as involving potential or actual abuse, assault, wilful neglect, ill-treatment or misconduct.
Serious sexual safety incidents could include an allegation of sexual abuse or harassment.
Dr Pollock said she believed the latest allegation at Perth Children’s Hospital (PCH) was still being investigated.
An investigation of the January 2022 incident by the Office of the Chief Psychiatrist delivered 11 recommendations, and while all have been accepted, only seven have been implemented.
In state parliament yesterday, Health Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson defended the delayed rollout of those changes.
“That work of planning and going through that infrastructure process is ongoing. It needs to be planned very carefully,” she said.
“It is the only in-patient unit in the state which can support children and adolescents in an in-patient [setting].
“We can’t just close the unit down. It’s not that simple.”
Dr Pollock stressed that while serious incidents were reported, the vast majority of patients at PCH had positive experiences receiving care.
Dr Pollock said it was vital staff understood what was good practice in relation to sexual safety, and that health executive leadership encouraged staff to have open conversations about how sexually safe they were feeling.
In 2020 the Office of the Chief Psychiatrist (OCP) released guidelines on sexual safety in mental health care, but these are not mandatory.
“The OCP can also develop standards which are mandatory and monitored, and I think having a standard for sexual safety would actually really help more sexually safe ward environments for service users but also for staff.”
(9 NEWS)
