The ABC is carrying outrage from ANU’s Professor Drew Richardson that the nurse-staffed walk-in clinic at the hospital has correlated with increased workload in the emergency department.
Causation is implied.
“In the 20 weeks after the walk-in centre opened the emergency department had 10 per cent more presentations than in the 20 weeks before,” he said.
“Now it is a little seasonal and based on the past three years we’d expect 7 per cent more, but 10 per cent more is a significant increase.”
Professor Richardson says the idea of associating walk-in centres with hospitals needs to be reviewed.
“We certainly shouldn’t open any more on hospital campuses and we certainly should give consideration to whether a hospital campus is the right location if this sort of service is to be provided anywhere,” he said.
It’d be a great hospital if it wasn’t for the patients.