Hospitals’ poor health

By CHris Brown and Brad Lester

PATIENTS are waiting in ambulances for up to four hours for an emergency department bed at South Gippsland’s major hospital.
The problems at Wonthaggi hospital have been revealed by The Star as Leongatha prepares for a public meeting to save the town’s crumbling hospital
buildings.
The meeting will be held next month after local community leaders decided they had to put an end to state government inaction on the facility amid fears it may close down without a public campaign to save it.
While the future remains doubtful at Leongatha Memorial Hospital, day-to-day operations at Wonthaggi are causing major concerns for paramedics and, more importantly, patients.
The four hour delays to admit emergency ward patients is happening every second day according to the general secretary of Ambulance Employees Victorian Division, Steve McGhie.
“It’s been going on for about eight months and clearly the hospital doesn’t have enough beds and staff to cope with the through put of patients,” he said.
“The further concern is that come March, with the desalination plant construction starting, another 2000 workers are going to come into the area and the ambos are concerned about the increase in people attending the hospital and delays.”
Mr McGhie said if an emergency comes in and the ambos are tied up at the hospital there could be a delayed response.
“If an emergency case comes in they have to force their way to offload the patient, so it will cause a delay,” he said.
“The fundamental issue is that patients can be compromised, with lengthy delays and gridlock in the system.”
Bass Coast Regional Health Chief Executive Officer Lea Pope said there were times when ambulances needed to wait.
“On an average day there will be four hours when our trolleys are full in our emergency department and our emergency short stay unit is also full,” she said.
Sometimes this is caused by patients waiting for ambulances to transport them to another
hospital.
Renovations at Wonthaggi hospital will increase the number of emergency department trolleys from four to six.
This work should be completed before Christmas and the busy summer holiday period.
The Wonthaggi Medical Group has also commenced a GP clinic in hospital consulting rooms.
It will give non-urgent patients the option of seeing a GP rather than waiting.
Concerns over the future of the decrepit Leongatha Memorial Hospital have escalated in recent times, with fears growing that it could be closed.
That’s the message being delivered by worried South Gippslanders to the Leongatha Chamber of Commerce and Industry president Darryl McGannon.
“People are certainly concerned for the future of the hospital,” he said.
“We have lost funding for it before so there is no doubt the government needs to spend money up there, but money just does not seem to be coming our way.”
The chamber and Leongatha Progress Association hope to meet with Gippsland Southern Health Service management soon, to discuss issues.
The hospital is plagued by leaking hot water pipes, poor electrical wiring, an old asbestos pipe running around the buildings, small theatres, cramped chemotherapy space and poor emergency section.
The health service board could meet with Victorian Health Minister Daniel Andrews as early as next week, to plead their case yet again.
That meeting is now being arranged by Gippsland South MLA Peter Ryan, a staunch supporter of a new hospital for Leongatha, who is not giving up hope.
“One way or the other, I’m telling you, this new hospital will be built,” he said.
A public meeting will be held at a yet to be determined date in November in a bid to step up the campaign for funding. Mr Ryan will be at that meeting.
“I can well understand if the community wants to make this public. The government has made a commitment to the hospital in the past and there is a clear demonstrable need for it,” he said.
The community action was instigated by a joint meeting of the association and chamber recently, regarding the state of the hospital.
South Gippsland Shire Council has also backed the community
effort.
Leongatha Progress Association president Michael Flynn said the group would now seek a meeting with hospital management to learn of the state of the hospital and the preferred future direction.
“Then we will start to roll the boat out, otherwise we will do more damage than good,” he said.
Gippsland Southern Health Service CEO Gary Templeton told The Star yesterday that the board had “made its case forcefully, but the reality is, to date we haven’t succeeded.
“That puts the issue more firmly in the political arena.”
Mr Flynn hoped a strong community campaign would be the final effort needed to convince the State Government to build a new hospital.
“We’ve got to the second rung in achieving things financially a couple of times and we’ve just been pipped,” he said.
“We need to know why this is happening, why other hospitals are getting first priority and why we are getting second.

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Posted by Chris Brown on Oct 27 2009. Filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry