Hospital not out of the woods yet after being 'completely blindsided'

And while interim measures will guarantee medical services for at least the next few weeks, the hospital is not yet out of the woods.

The WNSWLHD released a statement late Friday advising that the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP) would be withdrawing accreditation for medical registrar training at Bathurst Base Hospital, citing concerns about supervision and workloads.

As a result, four medical registrars were withdrawn from the medical roster and have left Bathurst to continue their specialist training at other appropriate facilities.

On Monday evening, WNSWLHD released a statement confirming services at the hospital would continue, albeit on a interim basis.

In the release, Mr Spittal commended the work of management and staff, saying "in the face of an extremely difficult situation, the whole team has responded in a way we should all be very proud of. We now have in place a model of medical coverage that has secured services."

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However, during a local radio interview on Tuesday, he conceded permanent replacements have yet to be secured.

Staff have been secured for a couple of months, but it could take more than a year for Bathurst Base Hospital to be re-accredited by the RACP and for medical registrars to return.

"What we have done for the next couple of months is secure sufficient staff to make sure we get through the early crisis stage in our crisis response, so that will, over the next couple of weeks involve a change with how the general medical teams work moving forward," Mr Spittal said.

"I am extremely grateful to our general physicians at the hospital; we have managed to secure some new staff to the hospital as well who will be coming as locums to support that response, but the whole team has pulled together in a very short period of time and delivered a remarkable response for the community.

"We are not entirely out of the woods. As I said, we have got things secured a number of weeks going forward and we won't stop until we have the hospital accreditation for training registrars restored and we have registrars back in play."

Mr Spittal said he and hospital management were blindsided when the news came through on Friday the hospital had lost its accreditation to train medical registrars.

He said hospital management had been working with the RACP for a number of months around concerns which had been raised by the trainees.

"We had met with the college as recently as late January," he said, adding the health district's impression was the college was very impressed with the efforts the hospital had under taken to address any issues.

"We were completely blindsided when, on the third, at 11am in the morning, we had a meeting with the college to be told that accreditation had been withdrawn with immediate effect."

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