No action on plan for specialist eye-care centre in Adelaide

MORE than two years after a promise for a specialist eye-care centre at Modbury Hospital was broken, there’s still no sign of where it will be located.

• Doctors reject re-establishing high-dependency unit at Modbury Hospital

MORE than two years after the State Government announced Modbury Hospital would become home to a statewide centre for elective eye care — then dumped the plan — the future of eye care in South Australia remains in limbo.

The Modbury plan, announced in February 2015 and scrapped in October that year, faced considerable opposition including from eye health groups who were concerned people with low vision faced public transport difficulties getting to Modbury if they lived outside the area.

Government officials have repeatedly indicated an announcement on a new site is imminent, including a Transforming Health website post in October 2015 saying “details will be provided in coming months”.

Eye specialists have long pushed for a city site, either at the former RAH or in the new SA Health and Biomedical precinct housing the RAH, SAHMRI, UniSA and University of Adelaide buildings.

Modbury Hospital

The Advertiser understands there has been pressure for the Queen Elizabeth Hospital to house the statewide eye hospital, despite Sydney and Melbourne putting major eye centres in the CBD for ease of transport and for access to emergency services for accident patients with multiple injuries.

However, SA Health deputy chief executive, Lynne Cowan told The Advertiser the city remained the preferred option. “We are committed to creating a centre for dedicated elective eye surgery in South Australia that provides expert care for the treatment of eyes,” she said.

“We are still working to identify the most appropriate location for this facility as community and stakeholder feedback suggested it would be best located within the Adelaide CBD.”

Macular Disease Foundation chief executive Julie Heraghty said the issue had dragged on for far too long. “There needs to be a dedicated eye hospital in the centre of Adelaide like just about every other state has,” she said.

“We are talking about vision-impaired people, the vast majority of people with macular degeneration are over 70, and they need to have their treatment near other health services they may need and with good transport links.”

The Royal Society for the Blind declined to comment, ahead of a meeting with Health Minister Peter Malinauskas on Thursday.

The delay comes as demand for ophthalmology services rises, in line with the state’s ageing population.

As of Monday, there were 3214 people on the ophthalmology elective surgery waiting list, including 122 who were overdue and 61 who had been waiting more than a year.

However, this only covers people who have seen a specialist to be referred for elective surgery.

As revealed by The Advertiser, the wait for an outpatient appointment to see a specialist who might then put a person on a waiting list for elective surgery has blown out to years.

In September, the number of people waiting for an appointment at an ophthalmology outpatient clinic, and the average number of days they had been waiting, was:

FLINDERS Medical Centre — 2790 people waiting an average of 1885 days.

ROYAL Adelaide Hospital — 1507 people waiting an average of 531 days.

LYELL McEwin Hospital — 1925 people waiting an average of 400 days.

WOMEN’S and Children’s Hospital — 2180 people waiting an average of 401 days.

SA Health chief executive Vickie Kaminski has ordered an overhaul of outpatient clinic appointments in a bid to dramatically slash wait times.

In a separate development, SA Health is moving to shift eye services in northern Adelaide from Lyell McEwin Hospital to Modbury Hospital, prior to the March state election.

Chief operating officer of the Northern Adelaide Local Health Network, Scott McMullen, told The Advertiser patients in the area requiring eye surgery attend Lyell McEwin Hospital, with follow-up outpatient services at GP Plus Elizabeth.

“We are consulting with staff, unions and stakeholders on the option of co-locating NALHN’s ophthalmology services, including eye surgery and follow-up outpatient services, at Modbury Hospital to make it easier for patients to progress through the stages of their ophthalmology care at a single site,” he said.

“The intent behind co-locating services means patients will benefit from access to more co-ordinated care in one location, as well as additional on-site services like pharmacy, medical imaging and pathology.” Consultation closes next Tuesday and Mr McMullen said SA Health would review all feedback before making a decision.

■ February 3, 2015

State Government announces that under Transforming Health, Modbury Hospital would become a statewide centre for elective eye care.

■ October 7, 2015

Government dumps the plan following opposition including concern about access to Modbury from people with vision problems living outside the region. Details on an alternative option “will be provided in the coming months”, the TH website states.

■ April 2016

SA Health chief executive Vickie Kaminski tells The Advertiser no decision has been made.

■ October 2016

Ms Kaminski tells The Advertiser: “We are looking at whether it should be a stand-alone facility, where it should be, should it be a public private relationship or an all public facility — we are going through every one of those options now.’

■ August 2017

SA Health’s Jenny Richter tells The Advertiser “We expect it will be in the city”.

■ November 24, 2017

SA Health deputy CEO Lynne Cowan tells a parliamentary committee an eye hospital is “not off the agenda”.