About 40,000 outpatients at the new $2.3 billion Royal Adelaide Hospital will have to be seen elsewhere
LACK of room for outpatients at the new $2.3 billion Royal Adelaide Hospital means thousands will be farmed out elsewhere such as The Queen Elizabeth Hospital.
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LACK of room for outpatients at the new $2.3 billion Royal Adelaide Hospital means thousands will be farmed out elsewhere such as The Queen Elizabeth Hospital.
As exclusively revealed by The Advertiser on Saturday, 14 heads of departments at the RAH have written to SA Health blasting outpatient facilities at the new hospital as “woefully inadequate and not fit for purpose”.
After asking to see details for more than two years, they were finally shown them earlier this month and say they are not prepared to accept the outpatient facilities as “it asks for an unacceptable level of compromise that will jeopardise patient care and safety”.
SA Health chief executive Vickie Kaminski conceded on ABC radio today that the new hospital could not cater for the number of outpatients expected — meaning almost 40,000 appointments a year will have to be made elsewhere.
Opposition health spokesman Stephen Wade said the cut in outpatient services at the new RAH was the result of “incompetence”.
“It is extraordinary that the Weatherill Government has constructed the world’s most expensive hospital with outpatient facilities so poorly designed that they are not fit for purpose,” he said.
“SA Health CEO Vickie Kaminski’s revelation on ABC radio that there is a 20 per cent cut in outpatient services is yet another case of sheer incompetence by the Weatherill Government.
“Vickie Kaminski’s musing that the Chest Clinic, TQEH or a GP clinic are options for treating outpatients from the new RAH illustrate how chaotic this project has become.
“What is certain is that as a result of the Weatherill Government’s incompetence patients will receive sub-optimal care and taxpayers are going to pay the bill to fix the mess.”
Ms Kaminski told The Advertiser outpatient facilities at the RAH had been purpose-built and designed in line with national hospital standards and she believed many concerns of clinicians would be resolved once they were working in the new hospital.
The new RAH is scheduled to open its Emergency Department on September 5.