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Asked to remove P2 respirator as a condition of entry

Posted By doctorpatient

"Asked to remove P2 respirator as a condition of entry"

About: Fiona Stanley Hospital

(as a service user),

My spouse had an outpatient appointment at Fiona Stanley Hospital. They attended with a new P2 respirator and had an extra one wrapped in its package, unopened.

My spouse was told to remove their P2 and put on what I feel is an inferior surgical mask. My spouse asked if they could use the new one in the unopened package- they were told no.

My spouse asked if they could wear the surgical mask over the top of their P2- they were told no.

COVID is an airborne disease and I feel P2s are far superior to surgical masks in reducing transmission. We are very unimpressed by your lack of flexibility when it came to this situation. In my opinion, you need to review your policy.

I believe it is absolutely not acceptable to ask vulnerable patients to downgrade their COVID protection as a condition of entry.

We hope you action this as soon as possible.

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Responses

Response from Neil Doverty, Executive Director Fiona Stanley and Fremantle Hospitals Group, South Metropolitan Health Service 2 years ago
Neil Doverty
Executive Director Fiona Stanley and Fremantle Hospitals Group,
South Metropolitan Health Service

Submitted on 21/03/2022 at 2:34 PM
Published on Care Opinion on 24/03/2022 at 3:14 PM

picture of Neil Doverty

Dear doctorpatient,

Thank you for contacting us to relay your spouse’s experience. Patients and visitors usually arrive with re-usable cloth masks, and as we cannot be certain of the level of protection those masks provide, an instruction was ordered for all patients and visitors to swap all masks for a hospital-issued surgical mask. Having said that – you are absolutely correct: P2 respirators are superior to surgical masks, and we have already altered policy / directions to door staff regarding this.

We are currently educating our door staff on the P2 respirators / N95s as quickly as we can, however with onboarding of new staff and the use of agency staff this is an ongoing process. We are hopeful that in the very near future the situation your spouse experienced will be a non-occurrence.

All the best with your spouse’s ongoing care and treatment.

Kind regards,

Neil Doverty

Group Executive Director

Fiona Stanley Fremantle Hospitals Group

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