The future of Amercian health care

CHILD cancer patients with damaged immune systems are being placed in filthy, rundown isolation rooms at one of the State's premier hospitals.

In some rooms in the oncology ward of Sydney Children's Hospital at Randwick, airconditioning vents are filled with thick dust, mould is growing in bathrooms and meals are placed in the same cupboard as bedpans.

Todd Leach, the father of six-year-old Hailey Ryan Leach, who has just undergone a bone-marrow transplant for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, took photographs in Ward 2 West, where Hailey was supposed to be in isolation for 100 days to protect her compromised immune system.

Mr Leach said that although the hospital's doctors and nurses give 100 per cent, he was appalled by the condition of some of the rooms.

"Maybe it's OK for a kid with a broken arm or leg - but not for a kid with no immune system," he told The Sunday Telegraph.

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