Three articles below
No meat at debt-ridden NSW hospitals
MEAT is off the menu at two NSW hospitals because the health service hasn't paid its butchers' bills, a State MP claims. Kevin Humphries has offered to pick up the tab so Gilgandra and Coonabarabran hospital patients, and local Meals on Wheels recipients, can have their meat supply restored. The Greater Western Area Health Service - which has already been accused of failing to pay a Sydney software supplier $22,500 for five months - has conceded it owes money to a number of creditors and has apologised.
Mr Humphries said he was appalled when he found cooks at Gilgandra and Coonabarabran hospitals were forced to provide meatless meals. "Our patients deserve better. It is a sad day when staff are forced to compromise patient care with a reduced and inadequate diet," he said. "I have even heard stories of staff buying meat for their patients out of their own pockets."
Murray-Darling MP John Williams said he knew of several cases of unpaid bills from the western health service. One Broken Hill business was owed almost $2000 and another business in his electorate had been owed more than $12,000 since May. "It's a bleeding ulcer for them - they are all suffering from the drought and they don't need this," Mr Williams said.
Greater Western Area Health is not the only one unable to pay suppliers. Yass air-conditioning mechanic Touie Smith said he is owed $18,386.50 by the Greater Southern Area Health Service for work at Yass and Goulburn hospitals. Part of the debt related to work done as far back as April and Mr Smith said it was putting a strain on his business. Most annoying was the fact that the health service would not return calls to discuss the problem. "We've been shunned," he said. "We are a small business with quite a low turnover - we have to be careful with our money management and outstanding amounts of this size can be very stressful." Mr Smith said the local hospital administrators were embarrassed by the situation caused by their head office.
It's understood Leeton Diagnostic Imaging is owed more than $30,000 by the Greater Southern Area Health Service. Part of that debt dates back to May and the business cannot get any answers about when it will be paid.
Health Minister John Della Bosca said it was reasonable for businesses to expect to be paid "in a fair and timely manner". "Since 2004-05, the department has set a benchmark that creditor payments should not exceed between 35 and 45 days from receipt of invoice," he said. "I believe the benchmark is being met in the majority of cases but I have asked the department to work closely with health services to ensure they're paying suppliers within the set time. "It is important these benchmarks are met as late payments can hurt small businesses."
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North QLD Health Services Third World Despite Billions in Mining Royalties
The mismanagement of the Queensland Health service in rural & regional Queensland is a disgrace. In the home of resource rich North Queensland all surgical proceeds now have to be performed at Townsville Hospital which is in crisis. Just 2 weeks ago the ABC `World Today" reported:
"In recent days, Brisbane's biggest hospitals have closed their doors to ambulances and the hospital in the major regional centre of Townsville has resorted to using conference rooms to accommodate patients."
TWO regional north Queensland hospitals at Richmand and Hughenden will close their fully equipped operating theatres. These theatres have not operated for 18 months after the QLD Labor government pulled the plug on funding the popular and very successful flying surgeon service to the centres. The Richmond and Hughenden communities had been waiting and hoping that the service which had operated successfully for many years would be re-instated. Hughenden & Richmand are 400 and 500kms by road from Townsville.
Following on from last months announcement of the closure of the Aramac hospital the people of north-west Queensland are shocked and angry after the latest Bligh Labor Government health plan had promised to close the gap in regional health care. In an email to Agmates QLD Shadow Health Minister Mark McArdle is scathing of the QLD Labor governments treatment of rural and regional Queenslanders:
"The Townsville Hospital is already at crisis point and this incompetent Health Minister is just making it worse instead of taking stress off the Townsville Hospital by de-centralising demand for surgical facilities," The Health Minister's claim that the operating theatres were closed because they didn't provide any surgical procedures as dishonest and arrogant. The reason these surgery theatres wasn't performing surgical procedures is because it didn't fund them.
This is another example of the Beattie-Bligh Government's systemic withdrawal of health services from rural areas. The Beattie-Bligh Government is killing off opportunities for accessible regional health services now, while it is spending millions of dollars on glitzy ad campaigns about what proper health services in 2020."
North West, North and Central Queensland is home to the vast fortunes generated by Queenslands resources boom. Last year the QLD state government collected $1.027 billion in coal mining royalties alone from the region. That figure this year is budgeted to explode to $3.213 billion yet the people of North Queensland have what can only be described as third world health services.
Those mining royalties have made QLD along with resource rich Western Australia the two financial powerhouse states that have largely insultated Australia against the world economic down turn caused by the credit crisis. Yet North Queenslands have seen there health services largely disappear.
It's no wonder that the WA Nationals are the King Makers after the recent state election. They campaigned on a "royalties for regions" policy that promised to return 25% ($700 million a year) of mining royalties too the regional communities of WA. If that policy was adopted in Queensland that would be $800 million just from coal royalties which would be invested into infrastructure & services in rural and regional Queensland each year just from coal royalties.
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Nurse backs reports of chaos at a major Brisbane hospital
A SENIOR nurse who recently resigned from Logan Hospital has backed up comments by emergency department doctor Michael Cameron that the hospital is "too dangerous and too dysfunctional". Bill Atkinson, a nurse for nearly 20 years, worked in the same high-pressure emergency department as Dr Cameron. He said his pleas for support were also ignored by hospital bosses and Queensland Health. "I have a lot of respect for the man," Mr Atkinson said. "He had the courage to step up and voice his concerns."
Dr Cameron, senior staff specialist in emergency medicine at Logan Hospital, revealed exclusively in The Sunday Mail last week that he had quit because staff were "overworked and overwhelmed". He had first spoken out about problems in Queensland's besieged health system in a frank open letter published in The Sunday Mail in May. The letter from Dr Cameron prompted Premier Anna Bligh and Health Minister Stephen Robertson to meet with him and appoint him as a special adviser to the Government. But he was largely ignored and the problems at Logan only got worse. "It had got to the point where I dreaded going to work each day," he said last week.
Mr Atkinson, who was a registered nurse and then a clinical nurse in the Logan Hospital emergency department's short-stay unit, had a similar story to tell. He kept detailed records showing a doubling of the number of patients pushed through the short-stay unit, which had a $7.5 million upgrade last year. "However, with this increase in patient turnover, there was no increase in the level of staffing or support," he said. "Like Dr Cameron, I too was dreading coming to work to the job I loved to do. I would often go home feeling overstressed and burnt out from a day's work." He asked the nurse unit manager about the possibility of increasing staff numbers. "I was bluntly informed that it was not going to happen as there was no budget for it," he said.
Mr Atkinson said he wrote to the director of nursing for medical services seeking a meeting. "I stressed that the pressure was overwhelming and that there was not enough staff and support to address the current issues . . . that it was not about me, it was about the quality of care that we were not able to provide to the community of Logan." Mr Atkinson resigned two months ago and said he was not the first experienced emergency nurse to leave Logan Hospital this year. "I know of four other clinical nurses leaving emergency before I did and a clinical nurse and clinical nurse consultant leaving after I resigned," he said.
Ms Bligh last week acknowledged the "very high-stress, high-pressure environment" at Logan but told staff there was "light at the end of the tunnel". The Premier said the State Government had bought nearby Logan Private Hospital and would refurbish it to provide extra beds by 2010. Mr Atkinson, who now works at Redland Hospital, will be joined there by Dr Cameron in emergency.
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