7 January 2009

Hospital holds up over holidays

| johnboy
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Katy Gallagher is thrilled that with the city a ghost town over the Xmas/NY’s break the emergency department at the hospital has coped with the consequences of our indulgences.

She’s particularly pleased with 60 babies brought successfully into the world as well as a large number of chest pain sufferers:

    Minister for Health Katy Gallagher MLA said that although the period was obviously a busy one for the staff who worked, they had done a great job in meeting the needs of the Canberra community and dealing with the range of differing health requirements that presented during that time.

    “The emergency department received a total of 1438 presentations during the period between 24 December through to 2 January with 456 of those patients being admitted and 945 being discharged,” she said. “41 patients were referred to other TCH services, and 9 patients were transferred to other hospitals.”

    The Minister said that the top five reasons for emergency department attendance over this holiday period were chest pain, abdominal pain, orthopaedics, plastics and gastro.

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On the American news yesterday (SBS) they said that countries with good access to GPs have the best health outcomes – Sweden, Germany etc.

Like us, the US is having trouble attracting enough GPs.

Dzee said :

There are 300 odd Americans that would love to have the universal health care system we have …

Every time I think of these 300 odd Americans I get the giggles!

CT yesterday – one poor bloke waited 3 days to get a broken leg set. He was originally sent home from calvary told it was nothing much, then spent days waiting in Canberra hospital for an operation. Katy won’t comment unless he makes a formal complaint.

I just want to say I have been super impressed with the public hospital in the ACT in the last week – and we are new to Canberra having shifted up from Sydney in the last twelve months.

On New Years day my wife broke her wrist in a kite flying accident – we needed emergency care and needed it fast – on a public holiday!

Within minutes of arriving at Calvary hospital at Belconnen there were two nurses administering pain treatment, a doctor arrived soon after – Xrays foloowed, followed by bandaging, realigning, more consulting with senior specialists, followed by more Xrays and consults – all completed in a timely fashion.

Then yesterday we started the follow up treatment with Canberra Hospital (Calvary does not have orthopedic specialists) – again promptly through Xrays, doctors and she was slotted in for elective surgery which was completed earlier this afternoon.

Everyone friendly, great attitude and organised.

BTW – we did ask if going private would be an option for the elective surgery but was told that it would be another week.

There are 300 odd Americans that would love to have the universal health care system we have – yes its not perfect but if you are unfortunate like us to need it – I think you to would be satisfied.

Thats been our experience this week anyway 🙂

neanderthalsis1:14 pm 07 Jan 09

Sounds as if the top five reasons for heading to the hospital were particularly festive:

Chest pains – Indigestion, over indulgence in various christmassy goodness;
Abdominal pain – over indulgence in various christmassy goodness or a bad prawn;
orthopaedics – Kids falling off new trampoline/bike/scooter or granny sliding under the table;
Plastics – Random BBQ accident;
Gastro – a bad prawn…

crabb said :

Plastics = ?
Wounds / injuries requiring plastic surgery?

Yup. Plastics is anything to do with the skin. In an emergency this might be a large wound, a burn, something like that…

I’m not so happy about the local health care this year.

On Christmas Day at about 3pm my four year old daughter fell over, partially knocking out her front tooth. We called the hospital only to be told that the emergency dentist/orthodontist is on leave over the Xmas period. and no emergency dental work was available over the Xmas break.

We were, however, encouraged to take our daughter straight to the hospital. While the staff at Canberra Hospital were great in removing the effected teeth they were also very apologetic that no emergeny dental staff were available over the break. We were advised that all we could is to have her see an orthodontist as soon as possible when they return to work after the break.

Plastics = ?
Wounds / injuries requiring plastic surgery?
Plastic ingestion?
Emergency nose jobs?

poptop said :

Can you be triaged to more than one category?

Maybe if your condition deteriotes during your waiting of 5 hrs to get in that you would be moved to a different category; but I wouldnt think that would be counted.
Seems more possible it could be an error.

Oopsie! I submitted an article suggestion about the inability of Katy’s office to undertake basic addition. As it is not unlikely to get published, here is the lengthy point:

Emergency Department presentations which are separated out into five triage categories, were as follows:

Triage category 1 – 8 presentations
Triage category 2 -170 presentations
Triage category 3 – 456 presentations
Triage category 4 – 625 presentations
Triage category 5 – 193 presentations

To my way of thinking, this adds up to 1452 presentations, not the 1438 reported earlier in the release.

Can you be triaged to more than one category?

Apologies, the pleasure, one imagines, is with the quick and efficient treatment, rather than the afflictions themselves.

Why would Katy be pleased with “a large number of chest pain sufferers”

Not nice Katy!!!

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