- First round of formal testing under Chief Health Officer (CHO) approved protocol shows results 74 per cent compliant
- CHO to provide advice on current and additional treatment strategies to remediate lead issue
The State Government has called on the Chief Health Officer to oversee a formal assurance process to manage lead levels in the potable water system at Perth Children's Hospital.
While lead levels have improved after phosphate treatment, they still do not meet Australian Drinking Water Guidelines that state that 95 per cent of lead levels should not exceed 0.01mg/L.
The Department of Treasury has continued monitoring and testing the progress of polyphosphate treatment, and from testing completed on May 25 and June 8, they reported results showing an improvement from 89.1 per cent to 92.5 per cent. The same data when analysed by the CHO approved protocol, returned results of 79 and 86 per cent respectively.
Polyphosphate is an approved drinking water additive proven to inhibit lead leaching, and the dezincification of brass fittings, which has been demonstrated in chemical and metallurgical analysis as the cause of elevated lead levels.
The Director General of the Department of Health, the agency now responsible for the hospital, triggered the first formal round of assurance testing. This occurred on June 25 and results provided to the Minister for Health yesterday showed 74 per cent compliance overall.
Comments attributed to Health Minister Roger Cook:
"This is an unprecedented issue left to us to manage by the previous government, and a holistic process is vital to ensure that we understand the remediation required to ensure the safe opening of the Perth Children's Hospital water supply.
"The Chief Health Officer's analysis indicates that progress in reducing the levels of lead still requires further work.
"I have asked the CHO to review all written reports and testing results, conduct interviews, consult technical experts as necessary, and report back to me as soon as this analysis has been done.
"This will be a critical step before clinical commissioning can be completed over a 10-14 week period to open Perth Children's Hospital, and the CHO will need to consider a broad range of issues to assess the safety of the drinking water now, and into the future.
"Our focus remains on ensuring we have a safe hospital for patients and staff and we will open Perth Children's Hospital only when it is safe to do so, and when we have finished cleaning up the mess left to us by the previous government."
Minister's office - 6552 6500
