A woman has been charged with vandalism after she allegedly cut essential medical gases at two Sydney hospitals, in what the state’s health minister has called “deliberate sabotage”.\u00a0<\/p>\n
New South Wales Police said a woman allegedly entered the grounds of Sutherland Hospital in Caringbah about 12:20am and cut the water and gas mains, before she turned on the fire hoses.<\/p>\n
Police said about an hour later, a woman then went into a private hospital on the same street and switched off the gas supply.<\/p>\n
Health Minister Ryan Park said the public hospital had to rely on portable oxygen and air as part of its contingency plans.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
NSW Health Minister Ryan Park said the woman allegedly entered part of Sutherland Hospital before cutting off medical gases. (ABC News: Andrew Whitington )<\/p>\n
A Kareena Private Hospital spokesperson said all hospital services were quickly restored and it was operating “as normal” with no impact to patients.<\/p>\n
Just before 4am, a 42-year-old woman was arrested at nearby Miranda for alleged breach of bail and was taken to Sutherland Police Station for questioning.<\/p>\n
“Following inquiries and a review of CCTV, police will allege the 42-year-old woman was the same person who attended the two hospitals,” a spokesperson said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On Tuesday afternoon, the woman was charged with public nuisance, enter prescribed premises of any person without lawful excuse, sabotage, destroy or damage property, and breach of bail.<\/p>\n
She was also charged with tamper with fire alarm or fire signalling apparatus and trespass on protected premises in relation to a separate incident at a hostel in Darlinghurst on Monday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She was refused bail and is due to appear before Sutherland Local Court on Wednesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Damage ‘could have been catastrophic’<\/p>\n
Mr Park said no patients were affected, and gas services were restored by the Southern Sydney Local Health District within two hours.<\/p>\n
He said the woman climbed into a restricted part of Sutherland Hospital before cutting off medical gases relied upon by people experiencing serious illness.<\/p>\n
“To do this is beyond serious. It could have been catastrophic,”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
he said.<\/p>\n
“To do this in any way, shape or form is to put the lives of some very seriously ill people at risk in a hospital. It’s not a joke.”<\/p>\n
NSW Health investigation underway<\/p>\n
The minister said NSW Health would investigate whether “anything could have been done differently”.<\/p>\n
“Access to gas systems in NSW public hospitals is restricted,” he said in a statement.<\/p>\n
“We will review the incident to see what improvements can be implemented.”<\/p>\n
Police have not said whether the woman being questioned had a connection to the hospital.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A woman has been charged with vandalism after she allegedly cut essential medical gases at two Sydney hospitals,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":338146,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4740,167005,4219,6478,5022,50,17364,9309,881,167006,167004],"class_list":{"0":"post-338145","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-caringbah","10":"tag-crime","11":"tag-hospital","12":"tag-investigation","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-nsw","15":"tag-nsw-police","16":"tag-public-health","17":"tag-ryan-park","18":"tag-sutherland"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115451273868425769","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=338145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/338146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=338145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=338145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=338145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}