Doctors welcome hospital upgrades but say no answer to public health woes
The public service union says the $18m upgrade to Cairns Private Hospital is good news for the Far North, but warns it is not a long-term fix for ballooning surgery waitlists.
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Queensland’s public service union has welcomed news of a multimillion-dollar upgrade to Cairns Private Hospital, but warns the region still urgently needs more resources for public health.
Dr Sandy Donald, Senior Vice President of Together Queensland and an anaesthetist at Cairns Hospital, said the $18m expansion to Cairns Private Hospital was “good news for patients across the Far North”.
But he said while the upgrades may help ease surgery wait times for some, it was not a lasting fix.
“While outsourcing of procedures for public patients can help reduce waiting lists, Together regards it as generally a poor long-term solution,” Dr Donald said, explaining outsourced surgeries ultimately meant increased costs to the public system.
“Building up the capacity of the public hospital means there’s a more sustainable workforce for emergencies and after hours work.
“This expansion in no way reduces the urgent need for a major expansion of the public hospital, including beds, staff and operating capacity,” he said.
The CEO of Cairns Private Hospital, Ben Tooth, said the new surgical theatre rooms coming to the hospital from mid-2024 would help draw more clinicians to Cairns to meet growing demand for a broad range of surgeries in the Far North.
“To recruit clinicians to a regional area, it is important to have high-quality health facilities,” Mr Tooth said.
“Ramsay’s additional $18m investment into Cairns Private Hospital will help with that. We will certainly see more medical recruitment on the back of this investment.”
Cairns Private Hospital has recently been hampered by shortages in obstetric and paediatric specialists, but Mr Tooth said the hospital would welcome new recruits into those areas soon.
“We have one additional obstetrician in the pipeline at this stage,” he said.
“We do have one full-time paediatrician joining us in the new year. I’m optimistic we can continue our maternity service and we will continue to recruit medical staff to support it.”
Cairns Private Hospital has traditionally accepted surgical overflow from Cairns Base Hospital. Mr Tooth said the upgrade would further assist in that space.
“It will enable additional capacity to assist the Cairns Public Hospital. We’ve always had a good relationship with Cairns Hospital and assisted them with outsourced surgery,” he said.
Mr Tooth said the upgrade was timely, despite the fact the new theatres would not come online until mid-2024.
“While we’re close to capacity now … having a theatre coming online in 18 months time should be the right time to add additional capacity,” he said.
“There will certainly be a need at that point in time to turn that theatre on.
“We’ve also purchased the land adjacent to the hospital … we still have plans to expand the hospital further onto that land into the future.
“We do know demand for critical care services will continue to grow, so that will be a part of the service plan. We will look at the bed capacity we have in the hospital … we do know that will need to increase. The community is also interested to know if Cairns Private Hospital will have an intensive care unit and an emergency department and they’re two critical services that we will look at in terms of developing onto that land in the future.”
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Originally published as Doctors welcome hospital upgrades but say no answer to public health woes
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