Health Minister Meredith Hammat says leaked email relates to patients drinking water from hand basins at RPH

The Health Minister has denied there are water quality concerns at Royal Perth Hospital after a leaked internal email showed staff were advised not to give some patients drinking water from the taps. In August, a senior emergency department clinician wrote to staff amid a shortage of bottled water advising patients could be supplied tap water from the hospital unless they were immunocompromised, or at risk of inhaling it. “The risk has been balanced between current practice (versus) existing pressures in the ED, in addition to the increased workload associated with logistical supply and delivery of water bottles for patients,” the clinician wrote. “I understand that this may have caused distress amongst some of you. I want to assure you that we are working on a long-term practical solution urgently to manage this problem.” On Wednesday, Health Minister Meredith Hammat denied the advice related to the rampant spread of Legionella at the hospital or water quality concerns. “I want to be really clear about the drinking water at Royal Perth Hospital. The Chief Health Officer, his advice is that the water is safe to drink,” Ms Hammat said. “The most recent advice that had circulated at Royal Perth Hospital didn’t relate to the quality of the drinking water, but related to hygiene practices where sinks being used for people to wash their hands if it was then subsequently used for drinking water, there’s some concern about infection control.” When asked about why the internal email showed an “urgent” supply of 200 water bottles had to be ordered for RPH, Ms Hammat said that was an “operational matter” for the hospital to address. “They would deal with (that) all the time in terms of making sure that they do have water for people who need it,” she said. “My expectation is that they would be able to address those issues as and when they need to.” Not long before the email was sent to staff, the hospital’s rampant Legionella outbreak had impacted on drinking water supply in the ED with a sample taken from a drink bubbler in April returning a reading of more than 10 times the acceptable level. It was among more than 230 samples taken across RPH since January 2022 which found harmful levels of the bacteria responsible for causing the potentially deadly respiratory infection Legionnaires’ disease.