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Woman with life-threatening food allergies repeatedly served wrong meals at new WA hospital

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Jo Principe outside Busselton Hospital
Jo Principe was repeatedly served food at Busselton Health Campus which she was unable to eat.(ABC News: Nicole Asher)
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A new hospital in Western Australia is reviewing its food service procedures after a patient with life-threatening food allergies was repeatedly served the wrong meals.

Jo Principe, who has an anaphylactic allergy to gluten and celery, was admitted to Busselton Health Campus at the end of last month suffering from severe back pain.

During her 12-day stay at the hospital, Mrs Principe was given the wrong food on five occasions, despite her allergies being recorded and her alerting staff multiple times to their severity and her dietary requirements.

She was served soup containing celery, pasta salad, cereal and bread.

Busselton Health Campus said it was reviewing its processes following the incident.

Mrs Principe said her family became so concerned for her health, they started delivering her food from home.

She said she was concerned for other people with food allergies who would be admitted to the hospital.

Food served at Busselton Health Campus to Jo Principe
Food including cereal and bread was served to Ms Principe, despite the hospital being aware of her allergies.(Supplied: Jo Principe)

"A lot of people are coeliac now, just because I'm anaphylactically [sic] allergic to wheat - okay, it's a little bit more severe - but you'd think a hospital would be able to cater to people's allergy needs," she said.

"If it was a little kid with a peanut allergy, obviously their parents might be around, but they're not going to be able to distinguish that."

Busselton Health Campus operations manager Jeremy Higgins said information on the dietary requirements of each patient was collected by clinical staff as part of a patient's care plan.

"This is documented in their medical records and is communicated to the kitchen as part of each ward's daily dietary lists," Mr Higgins said.

"Every effort is always made to collect dietary information from the patient, next of kin, carers and in the case of children, their parents.

"If a patient has been in our hospital previously, any food or other allergies will be documented in their medical records, and if there is any significant risk an alert is placed on the state-wide patient administration system."

Mrs Principe said the catering manager and nurses at the hospital tried to correct the errors with her meals, but they continued.

"Maybe it's just a teething process in the new kitchen happening at the hospital," she said.

"The catering manager came up, apologised ... and went out shopping and bought some gluten-free products and cereals and cornflour and some bread.

"He showed me all those and that was the end of that, but then it still happened again, another two times.

"Maybe there's just miscommunication down in the catering department, maybe people have got language difficulties, I don't know."

Mrs Principe said while she knew her allergy could be a problem when she dined out, she did not expect to have any issues as a hospital patient.

"It was a bit concerning, I started getting to a point where I'd get my husband to bring in food at night when he came in to visit me," she said.

"My children were getting upset, they were saying 'mummy you're in hospital they should look after you, they should know'."

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