7 February 2013

Canberra taking over renal care for southern NSW

| johnboy
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Chief Minister Gallagher has announced she’s sold the services of Canberra Hospital’s renal care and heart attack treatment to the NSW Government for the surrounding regions:

The renal agreement, which is for five years, commits the ACT Health Directorate and Southern New South Wales Local Health District (SNSWLHD) to providing renal care, including dialysis and post-transplant care, to residents of southern NSW, and to ensuring those patients have timely and appropriate access to specialist renal services.

The agreement covers Queanbeyan, Cooma, and Goulburn. and will be extended to Moruya and Bega over the next few months.

Under the agreement, the renal services team in the ACT provides medical staff and overarching clinical governance for renal services in SNSWLHD. The team is also providing administrative input into clinical services planning, service procurement, and facilitating local research and quality improvement in SNSWLHD.

SNSWLHD pays part-funding, to the ACT Health Directorate, for medical staff who are participating.

In the second agreement, ACT Health Directorate, NSW Ministry of Health, and Ambulance Service NSW (ASNSW), are establishing processes that provide early diagnosis and rapid treatment for patients suffering ST segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) (the condition commonly known as a heart attack).

ASNSW paramedics treating patients with possible myocardial infarction in southern NSW are now able to acquire, and electronically transmit, an electrocardiogram (ECG) to the Canberra Hospital Emergency Department.

That enables urgent decisions to be made regarding appropriate treatment both while the patient is on the way to hospital, and when they arrive.

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