Panel beater forced to live in workshop from surgery three years overdue

A Bundaberg man was forced to put his life on hold for years as promised surgery on a painful and debilitating shoulder condition was repeatedly cancelled and delayed, along with 150+ other operations in the Wide Bay Health Service.

When Wayne McGill was referred to Bundaberg Hospital for surgery in January 2020, he thought the end was in sight for his painful and debilitating shoulder injury.

The consulting surgeon told Mr McGill he would be admitted as a Category 2 patient, meaning he would have the procedure within 90 days according to Queensland Health guidelines.

But three years later Mr McGill was still waiting for that surgery, his hopes of getting back on his feet and growing his thriving panel beating business dashed as he was forced to live on Centrelink payments and move into his Walkervale workshop just to keep a roof over his head.

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“I live in my workshop to try and keep my costs and expenses down,” Mr McGill said.

“My whole goal was to get a bigger premises or hopefully even try and buy a premises, but without having a decent income the bank won’t even look at you.”

Wayne McGill was forced to live on Centrelink payments and move into his workshop due to loss of work while waiting for his shoulder surgery.

Eventually, the pain became so intense Mr McGill contacted the hospital in 2022 to try to finalise a date for his surgery.

That was when he found out the hospital had downgraded his condition to a Category 3 patient without informing him.

“I was in a lot of pain. I have a very high pain threshold, but it ... was actually giving me that much grief that I started to try and push them to hurry it up,” Mr McGill said.

“I had a consultation with them and found out they had neglected to tell me that they had changed my category from a Cat 2 to a Category 3.”

By that time Mr McGill was well overdue for his surgery, even with the reduced category, according to Queensland Health Guidelines, with Category 3 patients expected to have surgery within 365 days.

“I’d already waited that three times over,” he said.

Mr McGill is one of many people waiting for surgery at Wide Bay hospitals who have had the pain, discomfort and inconvenience of their condition prolonged by delays and cancellations.

In response to a question on notice tabled in June 2023 by LNP spokeswoman for health Ros Kelly, Health Minister Shannon Fentiman revealed 153 elective surgeries were deferred or cancelled in WBHHS hospitals in 2022, the most in regional Queensland.

Ms Fentiman said the cancellations and delays were caused by impacts on bed availability due to Covid, with staff working to reduce the backlog.

Health Minister Shannon Fentiman said the high volume of elective surgery cancellations at Wide Bay hospitals was due to the impact of Covid on bed and staff availability.

“Since the beginning of 2020, Queensland’s health system has been impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, including through managing positive patients and quarantine requirements of Queensland Health staff diagnosed with or exposed to Covid-19,” Ms Fentiman said.

“These pressures have impacted on bed availability ... However, I’m pleased to advise that the system is recovering well, and our fantastic health workers are making progress to make up for cancelled surgeries.”

Queensland Health performance data for the March 2023 quarter shows patients booked in for elective surgery at Bundaberg and Hervey Bay hospitals in 2023 are still waiting longer than the recommended time frames.

More than 21 per cent of Category 2 patients waited longer than the clinically recommended time at Bundaberg Hospital, with two patients in the most urgent Category 1 not admitted for surgery within the recommended 30-day time frame at Hervey Bay Hospital.

WBHHS Chief Operating Officer Ben Ross-Edwards said staff at Bundaberg Hospital were providing “timely care” for the most urgent Category 1 patients, with shortfalls at Hervey Bay Hospital being due to staff unavailability.

“We’ve experienced some staffing challenges at our Fraser Coast facilities, with five vacancies for anaesthetists and orthopaedic surgeons in our senior medical team,” he said.

“We’re pleased to announce that we have recently filled all five of these positions, and we expect to significantly improve our elective surgery waiting times in the coming months.”

WBHHS Chief Operating Officer Ben Ross-Edwards said Category 1 patients were not seen in the clinically recommended timeframe at Hervey Bay hospital due to staff shortages.

Explanations of surgery delays as being due to the Covid pandemic are familiar to Mr McGill, with hospital staff giving him the same story when he asked why his category had been downgraded.

But he does not give this explanation any credence, saying that the peak of the pandemic came well after he was first referred to Bundaberg Hospital for surgery in January 2020.

“Covid was after I was supposed to be in and out and dealt with,” he said.

After finally being admitted for surgery in May 2023 following a series of complaints facilitated by patient advocate Beryl Crosby, Mr McGill said he was discharged within two hours of leaving the operating theatre with a nurse telling him they did not have sufficient staff to keep him under observation following the surgery.

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He is now seeking a meeting with Ms Fentiman to impress upon her the urgency of addressing staffing at Bundaberg Hospital as a priority, before looking to the new Bundaberg Hospital as the solution to the underperforming WBHHS when it opens as scheduled in 2027.

“I’ve come to this conclusion that we need to speak up more,” Mr McGill said.

“What I’ll be saying (to Ms Fentiman) is we need to look after the hospital that we’ve already got.

“The staff are understaffed, the nurses are looking after more patients per nurse and we don’t have enough doctors here.

“We don’t have enough nurses to run the beds that we’ve got.”