Noarlunga Hospital to lose 29-bed ward as it is wound down under Transforming Health

NOARLUNGA Hospital’s 29-bed medical ward will be closed by June as the hospital is wound down from a frontline service under the Transforming Health plan.

Noarlunga Hospital Emergency Department . Picture Dylan Coker

NOARLUNGA Hospital’s 29-bed medical ward will be closed by June as the hospital is wound down from a frontline service under the Transforming Health plan.

The loss in the south comes as senior doctors in the north warn changes at Modbury and Lyell McEwin are likely to result in “avoidable deaths’’ — and they want their objections on the record for any future coronial inquests.

Closure of Noarlunga’s medical ward will mean anyone needing to stay for medical reasons will be transferred to Flinders Medical Centre, which will get just 16 of the beds.

Officials told The Advertiser there will be no job losses but unions are pushing for guarantees. Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation SA spokesman Rob Bonner said the union has been told any staff who want to shift to FMC will be able to do so.

“We told southern Local Health Network officials: ‘You can put up all the proposals you like but until we have appropriate job security in place we are not agreeing to any inter-regional shifts’,” Mr Bonner said.

Southern Local Health Network director of medicine Dr Philip Aylward said the move would be a win for patients.

“It was a bit of a ward on its own as there was no intensive care unit or high dependency unit,” he said.

“These days, people in hospital tend to be much sicker than they were some years ago or they would be at home — they need to be in a major hospital where such care is available.”

Earlier on Monday, 19 of 23 emergency department doctors at Lyell McEwin Hospital sent a letter to Health Minister Jack Snelling warning the Transforming Health plan will “result in poorer patient outcomes to the point of potentially avoidable deaths.”

They are the latest clinicians warning against the reforms, despite LMH being upgraded as one of the state’s three flagship hospitals with “super EDs’’.

The Australian Medical Association and the heads of the College of Surgeons and Physicians also expressed concerns about changes at Modbury and Lyell McEwin, due to start next week. The ED doctors say they want their views on the record ``to be presented at any coronial proceedings into adverse patient outcomes’’.

They warn that Lyell McEwin’s ED faces being “overwhelmed’’ by Modbury’s workload. But SA Health’s Dr John Maddison insisted many doctors support the proposal.

“If you’re having a heart attack or a stroke and that needs definitive management, then that needs to be in a hospital that has the right facilities and the right staff,” he said.