00:00 When we hand our children over to the children's hospital, we expect them to be safe. That
00:08 is a reasonable expectation.
00:10 Those expectations were shattered in January last year. A 13-year-old girl was admitted
00:16 to a mental health ward at Perth Children's Hospital after being raped by a stranger she
00:20 met online. But while under the care of the hospital, she was allegedly raped again by
00:26 a 13-year-old male patient.
00:29 She still struggles with this and will continue to for the rest of her life. The one thing
00:33 that she is absolutely certain about is that she does not want this happening to other
00:37 children.
00:38 A review of the incident commissioned by the Child and Adolescent Health Service found
00:42 on-duty nurses failed to complete their required hourly checks in the ward because they themselves
00:49 were hiding for hours from the male patient. Security wasn't called and it's in that window
00:55 when the girl was allegedly raped.
00:58 There were a number of failures on that night. Staff on the floor but also their support.
01:05 So it is inexplicable why a number of things weren't done.
01:11 The girl's parents say almost two years on, they still don't have a clear idea of exactly
01:17 how the incident was allowed to happen.
01:20 The report that we received was almost completely blacked out so we actually couldn't get any
01:25 detail about what happened to our daughter.
01:27 The on-duty nurses are no longer working in the ward and a suite of recommendations has
01:32 been implemented at Perth Children's Hospital. But as the Health Minister highlights, it's
01:37 not a problem unique to this hospital.
01:40 Sexual safety in mental health wards is an issue across the country.
01:43 Rather, this was a single example of a system-wide issue.
01:48 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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