Pigs causing ACT Health problems

ACT’s first swine flu death recorded this week…

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25862131-29277,00.html

Does anyone have a sense that the current ACT Government is actually listening to them?

Are there some examples of this?

Who do the current Ministers actually listen to?

These are genuine questions.

I am interested in getting some sense of how decisions are made in this place.

And who does influence the decisions.

Maybe the ACT government will listen, gun street girl. We know you read RiotACT … yes, you!

; )

I was certainly shocked to read that the number of deaths caused by access block each year is similar to the road toll, gun street girl. That is really confronting.

peterh said :

With the demise of the Canberra Hospital (the old one) we need another ED. John james should be emergency for overflow patients from woden’s TCH. There will need to be another in gungahlin, in the not too distant future.
*snip*
The health minister has to look at creating new emergency departments, not tacking bits onto the old hospitals.

Actually, what we need is more cash poured into inpatient care, as opposed to the current habit of throwing money at the ED. impactednurse probably sums it up the best in the following post:

http://www.impactednurse.com/?p=1104

Unfortunately, the performance of our hospitals at present is politically quantified by two measures: ED waiting times, and surgical waiting lists. As such, as soon as one or both of these measures blow out, the natural “quick fix” by the politicians is to chuck money at the department “in trouble”, without looking at the bigger picture. _Access block_ is the predominant thing that cripples TCH ED. Access block simply will not be cured by making the ED bigger (which, sadly, seems to be in the works at present), or building another somewhere else.

ant said :

gun street girl said :

Agreed. The hospital regularly runs at over 100% capacity throughout the year. Add significant strain to that already unsafe occupancy rate, and you’re naturally going to see the wheels fall off completely. Simply put, the machinery is far, far too lean.

Nothing and no one can sustain 100% for any length of time. It’ll take very little to push it over, and for staff to operate in that environment is completely unsustainable.

WRT to emergency rooms/casualty, user-pays versions of these must be set up, there’s clearly a market for them. Our family GP used to have a sole-person practice in Fyshwick, and any time you were waiting for your spot, you’d be pushed back as blokes in fluro gear were brought in by their mates, blood dripping, items of clothing wrapped around various bits, or being supported by their mates as they staggered along. She ran an unofficial emergency department there, and it was very busy with walk-ins/stagger-ins.

With the demise of the Canberra Hospital (the old one) we need another ED. John james should be emergency for overflow patients from woden’s TCH. There will need to be another in gungahlin, in the not too distant future.

The current hospitals and their staff have managed to avoid any major issues over the years, but this was based on a population that didn’t include gungahlin, or deep tuggeranong. With the new suburb of Molonglo, I fear that the populace will outstrip the existing hospitals’ ability to cope.

If you look at the numbers of staff and beds available, right now, I can only praise Gunstreet girl and her colleagues for the work that they do. There will be a day in the not too distant future where the system will break down. The fires were a stark reminder of what could have been a very bad result for the injured and dispossessed, if there were larger areas of canberra effected. The health minister has to look at creating new emergency departments, not tacking bits onto the old hospitals. Of course, new hospitals won’t be much use without the personnel to nurse, or the beds to hold the new influx of patients.

gun street girl said :

Agreed. The hospital regularly runs at over 100% capacity throughout the year. Add significant strain to that already unsafe occupancy rate, and you’re naturally going to see the wheels fall off completely. Simply put, the machinery is far, far too lean.

Nothing and no one can sustain 100% for any length of time. It’ll take very little to push it over, and for staff to operate in that environment is completely unsustainable.

WRT to emergency rooms/casualty, user-pays versions of these must be set up, there’s clearly a market for them. Our family GP used to have a sole-person practice in Fyshwick, and any time you were waiting for your spot, you’d be pushed back as blokes in fluro gear were brought in by their mates, blood dripping, items of clothing wrapped around various bits, or being supported by their mates as they staggered along. She ran an unofficial emergency department there, and it was very busy with walk-ins/stagger-ins.

There just aren’t enough specialists on duty at Canberra Hospital emergency ward.

My mother has been left with kidney problems because a few years ago she came into a Canberra emergency department with a severe UTI – and due to a dual car crash (with three critical victims) arriving in emergency the same time as her – she was left for 12 hours without any treatment apart from panadol. This was despite being delirious with fever. A series of mistakes then left her dying with a severe infection and kidney failure. It took over two years and a LOT of luck for her to regain some health.

In retrospect she would probably have recovered from the infection in a few days if I had just given her the antibiotics I had left in my fridge and not taken her to hospital.

Another example of this emergency department not coping with normal traffic was when my brother fell off scaffold at his building site and was left for 8 hours in the emergency ward. No critical patients that night, just a full house. My brother had a cut from his knee to his ankle, deep enough for us to see the bone. Eventually he was sewn together by a doctor on the emergency bed (not a theatre) with no one assisting the doctor because there weren’t enough nurses on duty. He was then immediately sent home.

No way in hell can Canberra hospital cope with ANY extra stress on their emergency ward. They can’t often cope with normal traffic, let alone a serious epidemic.

Agreed. The hospital regularly runs at over 100% capacity throughout the year. Add significant strain to that already unsafe occupancy rate, and you’re naturally going to see the wheels fall off completely. Simply put, the machinery is far, far too lean.

on topic – nope we can’t cope. One look at Calvary or CH emergency departments at the moment will show you how ill prepared our authoities are to deal with anything big (or infectious).

Remember our bushfires – at that time they were the biggest single casualty event ever handled by a hospital system in Australia. And we have not upgraded a single process, building or procedure to cope with anything like it happening again. (or to cope with two things happening at the same time – like a mild pandemic and a terrorist attack)