“They gave him medication that slowed down his heart,but then I see his eyeballs rolling back into his head,and I’m thinking,‘My son is going to die here,’ ” Genca says. “Then the head of the intensive care unit asks us ‘What do we do with Matthew at this time;how do we treat him?’ When you have the head of ICU asking you,a parent,what to do,there is something wrong with the system.”
The latest Bureau of Health Information quarterly report shows that physical restraint is still being deployed at The Children’s Hospital at Westmead at a higher rate than any other NSW public hospital. Of the 36 acute mental health episodes at the hospital from April to June 2023,physical restraint was used 26 times.
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Last quarter,the children’s facility experienced 38 acute mental health episodes,with physical restraint used 64 times. The data is only for physical restraint in the mental health ward and not an account of interventions across the hospital.
By comparison,the Sydney Children’s Hospital,Randwick,experienced 381 acute mental health episodes from April to June this year,and used physical restraint seven times. Last quarter there were 205 episodes of acute mental health and physical restraint was used fewer than five times.
Genca says he is terrified to take Matthew to hospital and wants training for all staff across all wards so no other families are subjected to the trauma.
“I just can’t accept that living in Australia this is normal. We shouldn’t have nurses who say we don’t know how to help kids who are neurodiverse or in crisis,” he says.