The level of understanding of the legislation, regulation, and law by the NSW Education Department is astoundingly embarrassing. The Minister has chosen not to involve herself in something as trivial as the safety and lives of NSW school students but has rather delegated all responses to the ironically named Directorate of "Health, Safety and Staff Wellbeing". This directorate of the NSW Education Department (in all its correspondence with LifeVac to date) has demonstrated no working knowledge of the legislation, regulations, and law; has made a series of false statements about these to the Minister; misrepresented an opinion by one person at NSW Health (based primarily on a tabloid article) as "strong formal advice"; and misread the SafeWork NSW Code of Practice. One must wonder about the validity and veracity of any policy decision by this Directorate or the NSW Department of Education if this is the level of rigor and knowledge.
Minister Car and the NSW Education Department need to think seriously about the statements, claims, and assertions made concerning this matter and their refusal to consider the LifeVac device based simply on unevidenced, unresearched assumptions and false statements by its own Department.
No risk assessment has been undertaken, no research or any consultation with staff and parents has taken place, no formal advice has been obtained (either clinically, legal or from the actual regulator), no assessment has been made of the LifeVac, and no meeting has been allowed with the parents of a child that died unnecessarily in their care.
What little “evidence” is used to support their position is either erroneous, a misrepresentation or misunderstanding (or both) of the legislation and law. The NSW DoE has no plan to prevent a similar death from occurring, and this is solely based on a belief that “current measures should work”; is not a defence. Importantly, this will most likely not be the basis for an exonerating defence in a future Coroner’s Inquest into the circumstances of the death of Decklan Hayward.