QEH to lose gynaecology service, parliamentary committee told during scathing critique of Adelaide’s metro hospital system

SA’s metro hospital system has been savaged at a parliamentary committee, with claims the Minister has been “sidelined” and the QEH to lose gynaecology.

The Queen Elizabeth Hospital may lose much-needed services, and Health Minister Stephen Wade has been “sidelined” when it comes to making important health decisions, a parliamentary inquiry has heard.

In a wide-ranging and scathing critique of the metropolitan public hospital system, health experts also told the hearing on Tuesday that doctors were at breaking point, efforts to fix the ramping and overcrowding crisis were failing and the state government had paid 150 per cent more per patient than the private rate to outsource surgery to the Wakefield Hospital.

SA Salaried Medical Officers Association senior industrial officer Bernadette Mulholland said gynaecologists at the QEH had been told that their “gynaecology services are being moved holus-bolus to the new Women’s and Children’s Hospital,” which is due to open in 2027.

A government spokesman told The Advertiser planning for the new $1.95 billion WCH included infrastructure for a gynaecology service however “no decision has been made about the provision of the service”.

Ms Mulholland said concerns had been raised by WCH clinicians about the potential move.

“I had heard from the gynaecologists are the Women’s and Children’s Hospital that it was going to be very difficult to accommodate the very large amount of services and care that’s provided at the QEH and incorporate that into the Women’s and Children’s Hospital,” she said.

SA Salaried Medical Officers Association (SASMOA) senior industrial officer Bernadette Mulholland. Picture: Matt Loxton

WCH Alliance spokesman Professor Warren Jones, who is a former obstetrician and gynaecologist, said the western suburbs needed gynaecology services to remain in the area because it had a growing and ageing population that would require such services into the future.

“The same old argument is made that there’s no problem, you just go 10 minutes down the road … that is a nonsense. The service needs to be more accessible,” he said.

Mr Jones also told the hearing Health Minister Stephen Wade had “in a sense been sidelined” in the decision-making processes within the health system.

He said senior- and middle-level bureaucracy took “a lot of the effective decision-making away from the Minister”.

“I do believe also … that the administration of the various (local health networks) has become dysfunctional,” he said.

“They spend most of their time guarding their backsides, explaining away deficiencies without addressing the problems.”

Mr Jones slammed the idea it was cheaper to privatise medical services than have them remain in the public system.

“Before Covid the government was outsourcing surgery to the Wakefield hospital (and) then it was sold to a private developer, who made it extremely expensive for them to do that,” he said.

“The government was paying 150 per cent of the private hospital rate per patient to get patients in there for surgery. Now, that’s crazy stuff.”

Mr Jones also took aim at the government’s handling of the ramping crisis at Adelaide’s hospitals.

“There’s been a reliance on … increasing the size of emergency departments in the hope that that will overcome ramping and hospital crowding. It won’t,” he said.

“It’s what happens in the hospitals and getting patients out of the hospitals that make a difference and I don’t think they’ve made any inroads into that at all.”

Ms Mulholland also told the hearing health decisions were “driven by budget care, rather than patient care” and clinicians were fatigued and at breaking point.

“Each year it gets worse to the point where you are seeing now very broken people … and I don’t think our health service can sustain much more,” she said.

SA-BEST MLC and committee chair Connie Bonaros said the evidence provided to the hearing was “disturbingly profound”.

“One of this state’s most respected former clinicians has put the government on notice that if it doesn’t immediately increase funding to the new Women’s and Children’s Hospital, more patients are going to die unnecessarily,” she said.

“We also heard evidence of the government’s plan by stealth to axe all gynaecology services from the QEH – a decision the head of the hospital gynaecology unit didn’t even know about until two weeks ago,” she said.

“Not only is that decision a kick in the guts to women and families living in the western suburbs, it’s also another indication of the management chaos inside SA Health.”

Opposition health spokesman Chris Picton said “western-suburbs women should be getting improved access to services like gynaecology, not left watching as these services are taken away”.

Mr Picton also said Professor Jones’ claim that Mr Wade had been sidelined was “the worst-kept secret in the health system”.

“Today we have ramping at many of our major hospitals, we’ve had 116 patients stuck in emergency departments waiting – and we have no plan from the Health Minister to do anything about it,” he said.

Comment has been sought from Mr Wade.