Doctors Cry For Help
Illawarra Mercury
Thursday November 15, 2007
WOLLONGONG Hospital's most senior emergency physicians have joined a chorus of frustrated doctors demanding the NSW Government fix the state's disastrous emergency departments.
At least three Wollongong Hospital emergency physicians are among 119 across the state who have signed an open letter to patients, describing emergency departments as desperately overcrowded and understaffed.The letter, initiated by Bankstown Hospital's Dr Sue Ieraci and emailed to doctors last week, also expresses the clinicians' disgust at the State Government repeatedly ignoring their concerns.Wollongong Hospital clinical director of emergency Tom Carrigan said he and at least two other colleagues had signed the letter."It truly reflects the crisis that is occurring in NSW Health at the moment," Dr Carrigan said.He said the recruitment and retention of emergency physicians was one of the most important issues, with Wollongong Hospital recently having to employ doctors from overseas."All our local graduates are tending to go to Queensland at the moment because it's better pay and they have better conditions and they're better respected," Dr Carrigan said.Wollongong Hospital's director of emergency training Peter Smith also signed the letter. Dr Smith resigned as director of the hospital's emergency department in September 2005, at the height of a bed-block crisis which routinely meant patients were being forced to wait hours in ambulances or on trolleys in the corridor due to a lack of beds.Dr Smith said the situation had improved since the hospital had adopted a whole-hospital approach to the issue of bed block rather than considering it a department issue.However, he said a lack of beds was still a major concern, as was the hospital's ageing infrastructure. The emergency department was five years out of date and needed replacing, he said.Doctors who signed the letter have called on Minister for Health Reba Meagher and NSW Health director-general Debora Picone to "acknowledge the real issues as outlined, and to immediately engage an eminent emergency medicine specialist to lead positive change".The letter lists more beds, better recruitment and retention programs for specialists and greater policy contribution from front-line staff as priorities."We need a real, effective workforce plan for NSW," the letter says."Then we need EDs (emergency departments) to become sustainable workplaces so that we don't lose all our valuable staff to burnout."
© 2007 Illawarra Mercury
