‘Reducing trauma’: $80k new look for Gold Coast ICU Safety warning over popular e-scooter, bike trend
ONLY metres away from where loved ones are battling to make it back from the brink of death, families wait within the walls of Gold Coast University Hospital’s ICU waiting room.
It’s a harrowing experience where families often do not know what will happen for days - even weeks - on end.
But the hospital’s $80,000 ICU waiting room transformation is all about “reducing trauma” for visitors waiting for loved ones undergoing intensive treatments.
“It’s not just about reducing the trauma of our patients, but also how do we reduce the trauma family members might have especially when you don’t know whether your loved one is going to survive or not,” Gold Coast Hospital Foundation CEO Ben Cox said.
“When you’ve got close to 10,000 people using this space in a year, when you think about those numbers, this can’t be a stale office environment.
“It needs to be a place where they’re safe and supported.”
As the largest hospital within the region, GCUH not only treats Gold Coast patients but also critical patients from towns along the NSW border. The waiting room is expected to service 9350 visitors annually.
“So for patients who have flown in from a helicopter, or major road traumas, significant heart attacks, families could be travelling from far away and potentially be waiting for weeks,” Mr Cox added.
“So the breakout spaces, the private rooms, give space for families or people to run their small business, take care of their kids or fall asleep.”
Mr Cox said that the Foundation role was to take existing infrastructure at the hospital “from good to great”.
The new upgrade includes modular couches, tables, three private family rooms, and artwork.
“We identify those projects, the services, equipment that clinicians, doctors and nurses need to be able to give people a fighting chance at life and we listen to them to see how we can do more to make it better,” he said.
THEY’RE fun, convenient, cheap and growing in popularity, but there is also a dangerous side to e-scooters and e-bikes, concerning authorities.
Market consulting firm P&S Intelligence reports the Australian micro mobility market – comprising electric and traditional bikes and scooters, as well as electric mopeds and three-wheeled “pods” – generated $16.9m in revenue in 2020. The largest share was e-scooter sales, due to their cost-effectiveness.
But since then, people have been hurt or killed when the rideable devices, mostly powered by lithium-ion batteries, have burst into flames.
Most incidents have occurred with low-quality light electric vehicles while they were charging.
EV FireSafe, a body tracking electric vehicle battery fires, found 97 people were injured, and eight killed, in 57 separate incidents worldwide since the start of the year.
The project’s director Emma Sutcliffe said 13 of those incidents were in Australia, with the same number of people injured.
Among those incidents was a fire gutting a garage and ground floor of a house at Eastgardens, in Sydney’s east, on March 19.
NSW Fire and Rescue said investigators believed a faulty lithium-ion battery on the bike exploded, causing the fire, which has badly damaged the home and destroyed a car in the garage.
A woman was forced to leap from a second-storey balcony to escape the flames, but no one was harmed.
Ms Sutcliffe said the issues with low-quality electric vehicles were they often had poor quality lithium ion battery cells and battery management systems; took a beating in normal operation; and were often stored or charged inside a home or workplace, with a higher risk of a fire spreading.
“Not all LEVs are poor quality and many companies are using high-quality lithium-ion battery cells and battery management systems,” she said. Battery packs are made up of a module of smaller battery cells