NSW: Doctors hit out at politicians over hospital crisis

AAP General News (Australia)
12-18-2003
NSW: Doctors hit out at politicians over hospital crisis

By Jim Hanna, State Political Correspondent

SYDNEY, Dec 18 AAP - Senior doctors at the besieged Campbelltown and Camden hospitals
in Sydney's south-west today attacked politicians on both sides over problems in NSW's
public health system.

The specialists and departmental heads accused the Carr government of blame-shifting
and Opposition Leader John Brogden of political point-scoring.

Doctors reportedly said the government was more interested in sacking and blaming health
workers than defending them for working under difficult conditions.

Director of paediatrics at Campbelltown Hospital, Andrew McDonald, said he was extremely
angry at Mr Brogden for using the crisis to attack former health minister Craig Knowles
and undermining public confidence.

"It is like we are the bullet in his gun and he is shooting it at (Mr) Knowles ...

and then we have to live with a population that we are part of, that don't trust us -
after everything we have done," Dr McDonald told The Sydney Morning Herald.

But Mr Brogden was unrepentant.

"Nothing will stop me from exposing the weaknesses and the failures in our health system,"

he told reporters.

"If that puts a few noses out of joint, then I don't care."

Mr Brogden was at Mona Vale Hospital highlighting the case of two-year-old Riley Page,
who was admitted to the emergency department on August 18 suffering suspected appendicitis.

The first doctor who saw him allegedly dismissed the complaint, but another doctor
diagnosed a possible burst appendix four days later.

Riley was transferred to Westmead Children's Hospital, where he was immediately rushed
into surgery; he now has an ongoing liver problem.

"We met people everyday at Westmead with a story similar to ours and that made us feel
like ours was not an outstanding case," Riley's mother Kate told reporters.

Consultant-general and thoracic physician Tony Aouad, who has worked in Camden and
Campbelltown hospitals for 23 years, said problems were not confined to those hospitals.

"They're across the whole system but (are) fairly magnified in Campbelltown and Camden
because we are so much under-resourced for the amount of patients we see," he told ABC
Radio.

"The level of work that we have to do now, the increased number of patients that come
into the hospital now, the increased specialisation, has required increasing resources
which really hasn't kept up with the requirements that we need.

"Issues of doctors looking after patients and being quite open in managing poor outcomes
has to be also addressed."

Mr Brogden repeated his calls for a royal commission into the entire NSW health system,
saying the opposition received more than 60 complaints in the past 24 hours.

A spokesman for Health Minister Morris Iemma said all complaints had to be investigated.

But they should be seen in the context of more than 2.2 million visits to public hospital
emergency departments each year, and 17,000 overnight stays everyday, he said.

AAP jph/nf/apm/br

KEYWORD: HOSPITALS NIGHTLEAD

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