• last year
An ABC investigation has revealed more than 1,500 people have reported alleged sexual assaults and harassment in mental health wards around the country over the past six years, including one cases that happened at the Perth Children's Hospital in January last year. The family of a 13-year-old girl, who was allegedly raped in a mental health ward, is still fighting to uncover the details of what happened.

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Transcript
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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