Repat closure: Warnings patients will suffer if urology and orthopedic services move

PATIENTS will suffer if public urology and orthopedic services are moved from the Repatriation General Hospital site, clinicians warn.

Repat Acute Referral Unit Closure. General image of the hospital.

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PATIENTS will suffer if public urology and orthopedic services are moved from the Repatriation General Hospital site, clinicians warn.

In a submission to a parliamentary committee, Repat staff state that, because of the high volume of elective urology and orthopedic cases, relocation to other hospitals does not seem “feasible”.

The State Government’s clinical advisory committee disagrees, saying the facilities are outdated and isolating elective surgery would prevent the services meeting care standards.

Orthopedic manager Christine Doerr, who authored the submission, told a committee hearing

urology and orthopedics were centres of excellence at the Repat.

“Urology and orthopedics have been built painstakingly over many years in very well integrated pathways — evidence-based,” she said.

“To me, it really makes a lot of sense to try and retain that service at the Repat, mainly because, to be honest, none of us can see how it’s ever going to be incorporated elsewhere.

“What we all fear in this is that those cohesive and co-ordinated pathways inevitably will be broken up. The service is obviously about delivering patient care.”

The proposal was co-signed by orthopedic department head Associate Professor Graham Mercer and urology head Dr Michael Chong.

Urology and orthopedics make up the largest portion of surgeries at the Repat.

Ms Doerr said urology alone performed about 1800 procedures a year and saw more than 5500 outpatients.

Not only would the Government need to spend millions of dollars on new facilities at other sites but it would break up the services, which would offer less satisfactory patient experiences, Ms Doerr said.

“All our patients want to stay at the Repat; they don’t understand why their pathways have been carved up in four or five different ways,” she said.

“None of us come to work to give awful care to our patients. We all go to work to do the best that we can for our patients.”

Ms Doerr said a possible solution would be to have a private hospital co-located with public urology and orthopedics at the site.

Transforming Health clinical ambassador Professor Dorothy Keefe said every proposal was

evaluated against quality standards and principles established by clinicians but this proposal did not meet them.

“The facilities at the Repat are outdated and keeping elective surgery services on site in isolation wouldn’t provide access to the comprehensive care required to meet these quality standards and provide better outcomes for patients,” she said.

“There is detailed planning occurring in the south and the future locations of services will be determined over the coming months following extensive consultation and input from clinicians.”

Opposition health spokesman Stephen Wade said that a year after the Government announced the closure of the Repat there was still no answer to where urology and orthopedic services would be delivered.

“Given that, it is duty bound to look very seriously at this proposal put forward by senior Repat staff,” he said.

“The Government should immediately ... explore co-locating these and other SA Health services in a renewed veterans and ageing health precinct at the Repat.”