Two prisoners escape from the same Perth hospital in a year

The West Australian government will not say whether it has put extra security protocols in place at a Perth hospital after two prisoners from the facility escaped within 12 months.

The woman was a prisoner at Melaleuca, a maximum security women’s prison, when she fell out of her bed on July 22 and was taken to Fiona Stanley Hospital.

The prisoners were being treated at Fiona Stanley Hospital.Credit: Holly Thompson

However, she escaped from St John Ambulance just after midday while it was parked outside the facility. This masthead understands the ambulance was not “ramped” at the time of her escape.

Ambulance ramping refers to when a vehicle has to wait upwards of 30 minutes for a patient to be admitted to hospital or triaged.

The woman was the second prisoner to have escaped from Fiona Stanley in 12 months, with WA parliament told last week that a male prisoner from Casuarina had also attempted to abscond from the hospital exactly one year prior.

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The man had been taken to the hospital for medical assessment and treatment, but escaped and also had to be recaptured by escort staff in a nearby carpark.

A spokeswoman for Fiona Stanley Hospital declined to comment on what strategies or improvements had been made since the incidents to prevent people escaping from custody at the facility, and referred questions to the Department of Justice.

A department spokesman also did not respond to queries about what had been done to secure the hospital from further escape attempts.

“The Department of Justice reviews all incidents as part of continuous improvement of safety and security for custodial escorts and works with partners to evaluate procedures,” a spokesperson said.

But opposition corrections spokesman Adam Hort said the escapes must be appropriately scrutinised.

“Two prison escapees from Fiona Stanley Hospital add to WA Labor’s long shopping list of failures to keep control of prisoners and protect the community,” he said.

“Hospitals must be safe places for staff and vulnerable patients, not places where prisoners can easily slip away.

“We’ve heard from both police and prison officers that they’re often left watching prisoners in hospitals for extended periods of time.

“WA Labor must explain what’s being done to fix this.

“We tried in estimates in parliament to get a clearer picture, but the police minister wouldn’t even commit to providing figures on officers pulled off frontline duties to manage offenders in hospital.”

In July, Hort asked Police Minister Reece Whitby whether it was part of WA Police’s service delivery to sit with prisoners at hospitals or courts.

Whitby responded that, “from time to time, in certain situations, police are engaged in those processes”, but deferred to WA Police Commissioner Col Blanch, who said he was working with WA Health and the Department of Justice to reduce the time spent by police watching prisoners in hospitals or in court.

“We just want to make sure that that happens as quickly as possible so that those police officers can get back out on the front line,” Blanch said.

There have been eight escapes from custody by prisoners from July 2024 to June 2025.

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