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STAFF at Western Australia's main children's hospital will be rescreened by police after a loophole allowed a male nurse with a quashed conviction for sexually abusing a patient to be employed. The nurse had also been investigated over allegations of inappropriate behaviour towards a young female patient at Perth's Princess Margaret Hospital (PMH) last August, health bosses and police said today. No charges were laid and he worked three more shifts at the hospital before resigning. The girl's parents reported seeing the nightshift nurse acting inappropriately and he was immediately suspended, PMH acting director-general Neale Fong said. If the hospital had known of his history, the man would not have been employed, he said. "Our access to those records and information is not available to us at this point in time," Dr Fong said. The hospital said a loophole in the screening system had allowed the nurse to get a job in WA. Because his sex abuse conviction in South Australia was quashed on appeal, it raised no alert in the WA screening system. WA Attorney-General Jim McGinty meanwhile said all PMH staff would be re-screened for convictions, charges and spent convictions. He also flagged state laws due to take effect next year to widen the information available to employers and said that, from today, hospitals would swap information about improper behaviour by staff. Assistant Police Commissioner Mal Shervill said he could not reveal details of the nurse's South Australian case or where he might be now, but he said the man could be working at another children's hospital. "The current screening system employed by PMH is the same as any other, and the current legislation and the current system ... mean spent convictions, acquittals, and convictions that are quashed on appeal are not flagged," he said. Three other male staff members had resigned over the misuse of hospital computers but Mr Shervill denied a pedophile ring was operating at PMH. Two male staff members – a nurse and a medical officer – resigned after using the internet to look at adult porn websites, including a gay chatline, Dr Fong said. Another male nurse left the hospital after giving his computer log-on to two adolescent patients who then used a hospital computer to look at porn. Mr Shervill said one allegation of abuse at PMH had been referred for police investigation and the case was closed without charges being laid. "I want to reassure the community the police service has absolutely no evidence that a group of pedophiles has infiltrated PMH," he said. AAP (10-2-2005) |
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