Less than 12 months ago Health Minister Lara Giddings announced the troubled ward's new name, Northside, represented ``a cultural change'' and ``a new era for mental health in the North''.

However, an ongoing inquest in Launceston into the 2008 suicide of 22-year-old Ward 1E in-patient Claire Waugh yesterday heard revealing testimonies prompted by Coroner Rod Chandler's own questions.

Revelations included:

The state government had cut the facility's funding since Ms Waugh's death, causing the February loss of one of the ward's only two doctors.

Northside's clinical director revealed psychiatric best-practice patient-to-doctor-ratios was considered to be one registrar to a maximum of seven psychiatric in-patients. Northside has a 20-patient capacity and one doctor.

A simple structural design-related flaw in patient rooms remains unchanged 2sfr1/2 years after Ms Waugh utilised that design factor to kill herself.

(The Examiner is not reporting details of the flaw).

A wire fence remains the only barrier between the facility's courtyard and a public, easily accessible Launceston General Hospital walkway, despite it

being the subject of serious safety concerns for several years.

One senior LGH employee made a statement to the inquest in which he described watching from his upper-level office as patients and outsiders appeared to be ``trafficking in drugs'' through the fence.

A senior psychiatric nurse revealed the ward's rescue resuscitation pack was not in working order at the crucial time on the night of January 9, 2008, when Ms Waugh was found on the floor of her room.

``Maybe the mask was not attached to the tubing .th.th. or something like that ... that was required to give the oxygen to the patient,'' she told the court yesterday.

She was unable to administer the oxygen to Ms Waugh and the LGH's own specialist emergency response team had arrived by the time she returned with a different oxygen bottle.