An automated drug dispensing system will continue to be used in hospitals despite alarming concerns voiced by a specialist doctor.

Queensland hospitals will continue to use a drug dispensing station despite alarming complaints from a specialist doctor who says it regularly fails and risks patient safety.

The use of Pyxis technology, essentially a computerised drug supply station, is, however, being reviewed at the new $340m Surgical, Treatment and Rehabilitation Service (STARS) hospital in Brisbane following reports malfunctions regularly leave specialists unable to access critical medicine.

An anaesthetist, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the dispensing station had also failed at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital and Sunshine Coast University Hospital.

She said it was used by anaesthetists in the three hospitals and “all three of them have problems with them locking down and not letting people into them”.

In response to the concerns, the executives at Metro North, who are in charge of the STARS facility, said it would review the use of Pyxis to “ensure that technology does not impact on patient safety”.

Despite the alarming revelations, Queensland Health director-general David Wakefield told budget estimates the department would not conduct a wider review of the technology.

In response to a grilling from opposition health spokesperson Ros Bates, Dr Wakefield said the technology would not be investigated by Queensland Health.

“Pyxis machines are basically a part of our electronic medication management systems,” he said at state parliament on Friday. “They've been used around the world for probably close on 20 years.

“They are a critical part of safe medications management and there‘s been significant research done on the benefits, particularly in terms of avoidance of adverse events — giving drugs to the wrong patients, giving the right dose etc.”

The view of the director-general is at odds with the anaesthetist who worked at the STARS hospital for several months.

She said the machine was supposed to have a specific function to allow critical medicine, such as ephedrine and midazolam, to be accessed during emergencies, but the specialist said she was locked out on three occasions over a 10-week period.

“One time it took three days to fix,” she told NCA NewsWire.

“So what has happened at STARS is most of the anaesthetists don’t trust they can get emergency drugs in a hurry, so at the beginning of the day, they get a set of emergency drugs out, draw them up and leave them on their trolley.

“They don't trust what would happen in an emergency situation because it has failed them before,” she said, stressing “when you need it (medicine), you need it 30 seconds ago”.

An email obtained by NCA NewsWire also revealed Metro North would conduct a review of the patient booking software — the integrated electronic medical record (ieMR) – following concerns raised by the whistleblower anaesthetist.

She also revealed alarming instances at the new glitzy facility of at least two sewage pipe leaks and Covid-19 safety measures not being followed.

Following the revelations, Health Minister Yvette D’Ath delivered an impassioned defence of the $340m hospital that began treating patients earlier in the year.

“STARS is a 182-bed specialist health facility that provides complex rehabilitation care, specialist outpatient services and a range of short-stay planned procedures and elective surgical services,” she told budget estimates on Friday.

The Health Minister said the hospital was a “remarkable facility” that “represented a new concept for diversifying the point of delivery of surgical procedures and rehabilitation services”.

In a response to NCA NewsWire, Queensland Health rejected claims the Pyxis stations regularly failed, saying “there has been one formal incident involving Pyxis at Royal Brisbane Women’s Hospital”.

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