New Royal Adelaide Hospital move will be a ‘trainwreck’, without better planning, doctors warn
SOME plans for the move to the new Royal Adelaide Hospital need to be “paused or suspended” or the health system is headed for a “trainwreck”, doctors warn.
SOME plans for the move to the new Royal Adelaide Hospital need to be “paused or suspended” or the health system is headed for a “trainwreck”, doctors warn.
South Australian Salaried Medical Officers Association president Dr David Pope has told a parliamentary committee that doctors fear they will be left to deal with confused patients during the changeover.
Dr Pope said the health system was headed for “what is best described as a trainwreck” unless planning was improved and some plans “paused or suspended”.
The Australian Medical Association SA branch told the same committee that medical staff would need plans detailed at least six months ahead of the hospital opening date, otherwise it “would be impossible that we would successfully open a new facility”.
“Less than a year out from the opening (of the new RAH), there remains significant uncertainty,”
AMA SA branch president Dr Janice Fletcher said.
“Our doctors expect significant confusion from patients. We’re worried that not having these things bedded down less than a year from the opening date ... does not add to comfort for the medical staff who will be delivering the services.”
The most common concerns were over which services will, or won’t, be offered at the new hospital, whether IT systems will work, the new way patients will be treated when they arrive and whether new systems will mean patients can spend less time in hospital.
Opposition health spokesman Stephen Wade said the health sector faced a “massive change task”.
“Moving a whole hospital would be enough — on top of that, we’re going to do rebuilds of a number of other hospitals, roll out a new IT system and realign services,” he said.
“You’ve got to stage reform to make it manageable.”
SA Health chief executive David Swan said his department was doing“considerable work on the transition of patients and activity to the new hospital”.
“We’re very confident that we’re going to have a successful transition,” he said.
“We’ve allowed staff to have inspections of the new site.
“As information becomes available, we’re very keen to share that with staff and unions ... to ensure they have input.”
Mr Swan said authorities would “not do anything that’s not safe and that won’t provide the quality that we want for the public”.
Dr Pope told the committee there was “a huge amount of work that needs to be done to allow a safe move to (the new RAH) occur”.
“It’s extraordinary the level of important details that aren’t bedded down at this point,” he said.
“It’s always the medical staff in front of patients at the end of the day. They’re rather angry that they’re going to be put in that position.”