News

Remoteness remains Mildura's major health challenge

Fri, 12 Oct 2018 10:52:00

Mildura Base Hospital management says isolation is the greatest challenge to critical health care delivery in Mildura, whether the hospital is publicly or privately run.

MBH Chief Executive Officer Julia Morgan said the hospital executive and operator Ramsay Health welcomed the Department of Health’s community consultation on the future of health service delivery.
“It’s a great opportunity for the community and we would encourage people to get involved,” Ms Morgan said.
“But I would also remind people that whether the public hospital is publicly or privately run will not impact on many of the issues that are regularly identified as issues of community frustration,” she said.
“Our distance from Melbourne means we face some unique challenges for patient treatment, service delivery and recruiting and retaining staff – and that won’t change, regardless of who runs the hospital.”
Ms Morgan said Ramsay Health Care had worked successfully in partnership with the community and the Victorian Government for 18 years to build and strengthen the hospital and its services.
“We are no different to any other public hospital in Victoria, in that we identify our community’s needs and represent them to Government to achieve successful outcomes,” Ms Morgan said.
“Since 2014 there’s been more than $20 million worth of capital infrastructure and development at MBH, which has added another 30 beds to our services,” she said.
“We’ve doubled our Oncology services, and nearly doubled our Intensive Care and High Dependency Unit, introduced a new Prevention and Recovery Centre for mental health and have commenced planning for the new eight-bed Paediatric ward funded by a further commitment from the Labor Government.
“We have pioneered a successful Telehealth Project that has reduced the need to transfer very sick patients away from home. 
“We’ve also had some excellent success in specialist recruitment, with up to 30 specialists working at MBH and living in Mildura as part of the community, compared to 20 years ago when we relied heavily on fly in-fly out specialists.
Ms Morgan said she was proud of the very committed senior team at MBH who continued to do the hard push on preparing evidence and arguing the case for further improvements to services.
“We also have 1800 patients admitted each month, and an average of 100 people through our hospital Emergency Department. Day-in, day-out, our staff do an amazing job and they perhaps receive less recognition than they should,” she said.
As well as public health resources MBH had the expertise of Ramsay Health Care to draw on, Ms Morgan said.
“That’s meant we’ve had the opportunity to lead the way, in some instances, including by implementing our patient safety program Speaking Up for Safety, which was a first for a rural Victorian public hospital,” she said.
“We are subject not only to the scrutiny of the Victorian Health Minister, Department of Health and Safer Care Victoria, but also the additional layer of stringent clinical governance through Ramsay.”
Ms Morgan said she encouraged the community to get involved in providing feedback during the community consultation process.
“We have a very active Community Advisory Board, which has full disclosure of our performance, and does a great job in providing very direct, clear and honest feedback from the community,” she said.
“We would also encourage people to get involved in this formal community consultation process by the Department, and that means sharing positive stories and experiences as well.
“I am confident it will be a helpful and constructive process, because I think most people recognise we are an isolated rural hospital with a large community to look after, and the stresses that creates will be there regardless of who runs the hospital,” she said.