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Our regional hospitals must stay local

Merging local hospitals to regional hospitals, and its effect on giving the health needs of patients and quality service.

By news@gippsland - 25th May 2021 - Back to News

Our public health system is in crisis. Recently, we learned of a young woman in her 30s who tragically died after waiting more than six hours for an ambulance to arrive. This comes after recent reports of patients with heart attack symptoms and spinal injuries being forced to wait in ambulances outside hospitals for as long as five hours.

Merging can to result in job losses for employees in redundant areas in the combined company, an uncertainty resulting from a merger or acquisition can increase stress levels and signal risk to target company employees even more to the patient

Increasing waitlist for health

The ambulance system is under such pressure that taxis are being ordered to take people to emergency departments. In the words of health professionals on the ground: "this is an acute public health disaster".

Add to it the context of Victoria’s ballooning health waitlists for surgery and dental, particularly in regional Victoria, and it’s clear our healthcare system is a system in chaos. Now, the Andrews Labor Government is pushing ahead with a regional hospital amalgamation plan that will only make things worse.

Stripping out local hospitals

Dubbed as ‘Regional Area Health Partnerships’ the Andrews Government plans to give larger hospitals a leading role over smaller hospitals in regional centres across Victoria. In other words, stripping out the ‘local’ element and effectively merging regional hospitals.

By way of example, one of the slated mergers involves Mildura Base Public Hospital being placed under the Bendigo Health Service. How can it make sense to have one hospital leading the decisions of another, based over 400kms away?

Losing jobs, money, positions, and influence

Meanwhile in Victoria’s west, the proposed amalgamation of hospitals including at Horsham, Edenhope and Stawell, to create the new ‘Grampians Health’ has outraged smaller communities that fear they’ll become poor cousins to Ballarat Health.

Commenting on the mega-merger, surgeon Ian Campbell OAM, whose long career spans 34 years at Horsham, says: "the reality is that if a merger goes ahead we will inevitably lose jobs, positions, money and influence to Ballarat".

Diminished hospital capacity to provide quality

The effect of a diminished capacity will also see longer waiting lists, increase the travel to get treatment, and cost jobs. How is this fair to the residents who have fought for and raised money over the years to obtain better services?

Apart from the unique health needs of local regions, the Andrews Labor Government wants to centralize and dictate. The move sets a dangerous precedent for future government decisions. In this instance, removing standalone health services will diminish hospitals’ capacity to provide quality care.

Regional communities are disparate and far-flung, owing to the sheer size of our country. No one city or town is the same and each has its own identity. By adopting a one-size-fits-all approach, patient outcomes will most assuredly be compromised as health models will no longer reflect the unique circumstances of the community.

And to give country communities a chance to have a say on the plan, The Nationals have launched a petition at hands off.

Pictures from Harriet Shing MP Facebook page.

Source: www.gippsland.com

Published by: news@gippsland.com