Perth Children's Hospital—Water testing
Brief ministerial statement
Ms Meredith Hammat (Girrawheen—Minister for Health) (1:13 pm): I rise to inform the house of the Perth Children's Hospital water testing results. I acknowledge the concerns that the headlines late last week may have caused for patients, parents and staff at the hospital. Like all our hospitals, Perth Children's Hospital has a rigorous water testing program. Given the well-documented issues around lead contamination when it was constructed, Perth Children's Hospital pays extra attention to any evidence of heavy metal contamination. The Child and Adolescent Health Service has advised that as part of its water testing program, 461 samples were collected and tested between January 2023 and July 2025. It advises that those tests identified 11 lead exceedences, six in 2023 and five between January and April 2024. These exceedences were managed and remediated by the Child and Adolescent Health Service. Late on Friday afternoon, 5 September, the Department of Health advised my office that it had just learned of five further exceedences at Perth Children's Hospital from its latest round of testing relating to two locations. The sites of exceedences are decommissioned while they undergo remediation. I want to be very clear. I have been advised by the Chief Health Officer that there is no risk to the safety of patients or staff as a result of these exceedences. It is important that this testing is undertaken so that where an exceedence is identified, it can be rectified immediately. It is particularly important that we are testing regularly at Perth Children's Hospital given the history of that project.
As I have said before, the safety of our patients and staff remains the utmost importance to our government. Acknowledging the concern of some parents and staff, I have issued a direction to the Director General of the Department of Health to implement a requirement for health service providers to regularly report the results of their water testing regimes to the department and to immediately notify the Chief Health Officer in writing when an exceedence of Australian water drinking guidelines is detected. As part of this direction, the Chief Health Officer will be required to report monthly to the director general on any exceedences of lead, Legionella or any other pathogens detected and how they have been rectified. I have been clear that any exceedences that present a risk to patients or staff will be formally reported to me as minister as a matter of urgency. Again, I want to reiterate that there has been no risk to the health and safety of our patients and staff, which is our government's top priority.
