Canberra Liberals MLA Leanne Castley, Shadow Minister for Health, will put forward a motion in the Legislative Assembly today, calling on the ACT Government to immediately improve health care for very sick and deteriorating children at the Canberra Hospital.

Ms Castley said that following the recent deaths of a five-year-old girl and a 13-year-old boy, the government must act urgently to bolster early warning systems for rapidly deteriorating children.

“We have to do everything we can to stop our children dying in our hospitals,” Ms Castley said.

• Liberals call for urgent review of ACT paediatric services (19 September)
• Call for urgent review of Canberra Hospital paediatric care (7 September)

The Australian Medical Association (ACT) had identified improvements to the Paediatric Early Warning System (PEWS) used at the Canberra Hospital, she noted, and said that New South Wales and Victoria had better systems.

“I am calling on the government to immediately improve PEWS as the AMA has identified and reveal what investigations it has made into the NSW and Victorian systems,” Ms Castley said. 

“If the systems are better in NSW and Victoria as the AMA has said, then let’s implement them here.”

The government has revealed the hospital’s system for monitoring sick and deteriorating children has been under review for 12 months, including input from clinicians.

Ms Castley will also call on the government to release the review and its response, and to confirm if they have evaluated the PEWS system.

The new protocol identified by the AMA would allow staff to escalate the care of a sick child based on one factor, or single vital sign, alone.

The ‘single trigger system’ would mean an increased heart rate, blood pressure, or temperature, for example, would escalate the frequency of observations and the call for additional care.

“Sick children can deteriorate extremely quickly, and it is clear we can do better in identifying that,” Ms Castley said.

“Canberra parents and carers need to have complete trust and confidence that their hospital is doing everything it can to keep our kids alive.  That is why these measures are so vital.”