A high-level investigation has been opened into the treatment of a 66-year-old patient at Fiona Stanley Hospital (FSH) in Perth's south.
A friend of 66-year-old Darshan Arora said he was given the wrong dose of a blood pressure medication and as a result, fell seriously ill, requiring treatment in the Intensive Care Unit.
"You don't expect to go into hospital and get worse, or heaven forbid, you don't come out," family friend Philip Couper said.
Health Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson said while she only had preliminary details of the case, a SAC 1 investigation had been opened.
According to WA Health, a severity assessment code (SAC) 1 clinical incident is a 'clinical incident that has or could have caused serious harm or death that is attributable to health care provision (or lack thereof) rather than the patient's underlying condition or illness.'
'No parallels' to Aishwarya
Minister Sanderson said she was yet to receive a full briefing on the incident, but refused to compare it with the 2021 death of seven-year-old Aishwarya Aswath at Perth Children's Hospital, which is subject to a coronial inquest due to begin on Wednesday.
"It's a very unfortunate incident, it's being treated as a SAC 1, there is an investigation, we take these incidents very seriously, and there will be a full and thorough investigation," she said.
"I don't have the clinical details, I don't have all of the details of the event, and I'm not going to draw any parallels with what happened with Aishwarya.
"We don't know what happened on the floor, and the investigation will tell us, and we will make appropriate remediation if required at that time."
'Six times' medication dose
Mr Couper said Mr Arora had been taken to FSH emergency on Sunday morning with pre-existing health issues which were deteriorating.
"He waited for four hours but his condition deteriorated significantly," Mr Couper said.
"And it was after constant notifications by his son and his son's fiancé that Fiona Stanley basically said he needed to be admitted quickly.
"He should have been admitted straight away rather than sitting in the emergency room."
Mr Couper claimed Mr Arora was then mistakenly given six times the appropriate dose of a medication.
He said Mr Arora speaks Hindi and Punjabi and his English was limited, but requests to have a translator at the hospital were denied.
"We had someone go to the hospital [last night] and they weren't allowed in," he said.
"They wouldn't accommodate us, and they wouldn't allow us to have someone there."
'Take responsibility'
Mr Couper called on the state government to take urgent action to improve the hospital system.
"This is not politics, this is our community, this is the health of our people," he said.
"The way in which you treat people from a cultural perspective, the way in which you treat people from a language perspective, it is not good."
"Someone needs to take accountability, someone needs to take responsibility."
The Health Minister, who had not yet heard Mr Couper's comments, said the formal investigation was an important step.
"I'm not going to throw anyone under the bus," she said.
"There is an investigation that is required … so I'm not going to make any comment about any particular staff member or their role.
"But I will say this, every single health worker in Western Australia goes to work to help people."
Probe will take time
Ms Sanderson acknowledged sometimes "mistakes happen" and said systems were in place to deal with that.
She said she expected to receive the SAC 1 report as soon as possible but said there would be no compromise on the integrity of the investigation.
"They do take time to do it properly, the staff need to be interviewed, the family need to be interviewed, and the investigation team have to go back through all the records, write a report and then make recommendations," she said.
A SAC 1 report generally takes about six weeks.
In a statement, a spokeswoman for Fiona Stanley Hospital said she was unable to provide a detailed response due to patient confidentiality.
"We acknowledge this must be a difficult time for the family and we will continue to directly engage with them on the patient's care," she said.
"Our focus is on providing the highest levels of clinical care and we take all complaints seriously.
"FSH will also be reviewing the care and any outcomes will be shared with the family as part of our open disclosure process."
Mr Arora is now in a stable condition.
Fears hospital mistakes will continue
Australian Nurses Federation WA secretary Janet Reah said mistakes in hospitals would continue unless the government intervened.
"I'm confident there are staffing issues in that department, the staff have been telling us that they're burnt out and tired," she said.
"There's no minimum patient-to-nurse ratios and mistakes are going to happen as basic checks are being missed.
"Unfortunately, this will happen again and again whilst our hospitals are so severely understaffed."
Ms Reah said mandatory nurse-to-patient ratios would protect both patients and nurses.
"In each emergency department there should be one nurse to three patients, a dedicated resuscitation team, and a dedicated triage nurse," she said.
"This isn't the time to punish individual mistakes, it's time to fix the system.
"The government seems to just be giving us platitudes saying that we're coping.
"We're only coping because staff are working double shifts, extra shifts, being called in on days off et cetera."
