AT the 11th hour on Thursday afternoon, management of Bathurst hospital asked to address a meeting of the NSW Nurses and Midwives Association.
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The meeting, attended by 85 local members, was told by hospital general manager David Wright that the Western NSW Local Health District was going to seek an external review of the whole hospital and its services.
He also told them plans to cut staff and beds in the intensive care unit (ICU) were off the table.
Bathurst Medical Staff Council chairman Dr Ray Parkin yesterday said the backdown was the result of community concern and the realisation that the proposals were not going to produce the desired result.
“We must give credit to the executive for going back on the proposed cuts and collaborating with us to find ways of saving that do not affect patient care,” Dr Parkin said.
“They agree the proposed cuts to intensive care would not be workable.
“The ICU is the hub of the hospital. Any cuts to that is like pouring treacle into a machine. It stops the whole thing from working.
“The ability to manage critically ill patients is essential to every part of the hospital, from theatres and emergency to obstetrics and paediatrics.”
He said the plan to merge the nursing unit manager positions in ICU and the emergency department had also been scrapped.
Dr Parkin said an independent review of the rehabilitation unit would look more at outpatient use of rehab over inpatient rehabilitation, but there would be no closure of rehab beds unless the review recommends it.
He said five medical beds would close, but measures will be implemented to shorten patients’ length of stay and discharge planning will also be maximised.
The data collected will be reviewed after six months.
Dr Parkin said it has been recognised that much better paediatric services were needed and there would be a significant increase to orthopaedic services at Bathurst, including surgery.
He said there remains a lack of resolution about the failure to fill allied health vacancies, particularly those centred around paediatrics.
Union spokeswoman Linda Griffiths said management made it clear changes had to be made at Bathurst because patients’ length of stay was higher on average than anywhere else in the state.
“This, of course, doesn’t mean the savings and cuts of $5 million are gone. They still need be made, and therefore the level of anxiety at the hospital remains,” she said.
Ms Griffiths said the association wants an independent expert in activity-based funding to be brought in from Victoria – where the model is already in use – to carry out the review.
