Solution In Doubt At Bulli Hospital
Illawarra Mercury
Friday October 15, 2004
ILLAWARRA physicians returned to Bulli Hospital yesterday on the insistence of the State Government.
But a question mark remains over how long the roster at the 111-year-old hospital can be maintained."It's very fragile," director of the Illawarra's medical stream, Len Harvey, said.Dr Harvey and other physicians withdrew from the Bulli roster two weeks ago, citing intolerable workloads.They said maintaining rosters at Wollongong, Shellharbour and Bulli hospitals was unsustainable, with some physicians responsible for as many as 100 new patients a day.According to Dr Harvey, the real problem was not Bulli but Shellharbour, which had more acutely ill patients.It's believed NSW Health Minister Morris Iemma pressured Illawarra Health acting administrator Liz Gale to get the physicians back onto the Bulli roster.But it was like "robbing Peter to pay Paul", one physician said.Interviews have been conducted with new physicians, and Dr Gale said the health service was hoping to appoint two new physicians by December.But Dr Harvey said the only physicians who had shown an interest in coming to the Illawarra had sub-specialties in cardiology.The Illawarra's Division of Cardiology was concerned that this might affect its plans to recruit specialist cardiologists of its choice for the area's new interventional cardiology unit."It's true they're not happy," Dr Harvey said. "And we can't afford to trample over their wishes."He said the physicians had agreed to go back onto the Bulli roster "for the time being" on the proviso that Bulli Hospital's future role in the community be further evaluated.He said he and fellow physicians still held the view that the hospital should move to low stream medical patients only.Chris Dunn, chair of the Illa-warra's Division of Medicine, said opening up the Bulli roster again was a mistake "because the problem is down at Shellharbour"."I don't see how they can sustain things down at Shellharbour," Dr Dunn said.Dr Gale said on Wednesday that it was "business as usual" at Bulli, but the Mercury understands the hospital's emergency department was forced to close that night because of a lack of staff.
© 2004 Illawarra Mercury
