Hervey Bay MP Adrian Tantari weighs in on hospital crisis

Hervey Bay MP Adrian Tantari has exclusively revealed he has called on the Health Minister to review the direction of the board overseeing his electorate’s embattled hospital.

Hervey Bay MP Adrian Tantari has confirmed he has asked the state’s top health chiefs to intervene as the crisis engulfing his electorate’s hospital deepens.

Hervey Bay MP Adrian Tantari has confirmed he has asked the state’s top health chiefs to intervene as the crisis engulfing his electorate’s hospital deepens.

He told the Chronicle on Tuesday he had contacted both the Queensland Health Minister and the Director General of Health and asked that they “assess the current direction” of the Wide Bay Health and Hospital Board.

It comes after a vote of no-confidence vote in the board was sent to Minister Yvette D’Ath as bed and staff shortages continue to alarm hospital staff.

A leaked letter to the Minister from the Together Union this week revealed a meeting of its local members resulted in the unanimous no-confidence vote in the “ability of the Wide Bay Hospital and Health Service to set the direction in providing the services needed by the people of Hervey Bay and Maryborough”.

The letter was addressed to Ms D’Ath from Together Union organiser Alex Scott.

Mr Tantari said he was “seriously concerned” about issues that had been raised by staff at Hervey Bay Hospital.

“I have also had extensive discussions with the Minister and Director General of Health regarding the issues being raised,” he said.

“While it is not my role to assess the performance of the WBHHS board, which is the role of the Director General of Health to manage the board’s performance, I have asked the Health Minister and Director General to assess the current direction of the board.”

Mr Tantari said his expectation was that board would step up to meet the demand facing Hervey Bay Hospital.

He said challenges out of the hospital’s control were creating additional burdens, including clinics being unable to secure new doctors to meet demand and increased presentations at the emergency department as the population boomed.

Hervey Bay Hospital.

Asked about his party’s promise to build a new hospital in Bundaberg, the Labor MP said it had nothing to do with the level of services being provided to the Hervey Bay community.

“The WBHHS has an obligation to ensure that the level of service provided through Hervey Bay Hospital meets the demand of the community,” he said.

“Additional health services have been and are continuing to being rolled out in Hervey Bay, including the brand new ambulance station at Urraween, the new emergency department, only brought online in 2018, the brand new mental health unit currently under construction and the additional $12 million in funding to provide for brand new staff at the Hervey Bay and Maryborough Hospitals.”

Mr Tantari said he’d had a number of meeting with WBHHS executives and concerned staff, as well as attending staff and union members meetings regarding concerns at Hervey Bay Hospital.

“I am and will always be in full support of the staff at Hervey Bay Hospital and I am fighting every day to ensure that they are working in a safe and secure environment and that the services they provide are the best that can be provided to the Hervey Bay community,” he said.

The MP’s comments come after a bleak picture of an ICU in crisis was painted earlier this week in extraordinary leaked letters sent between a senior doctor, Wide Bay Hospital and Health chiefs and the union.

In one letter, sent to a senior doctor and sighted by the Fraser Coast Chronicle, Wide Bay Hospital and Health Service CEO Debbie Carroll stressed the Hervey Bay Intensive Unit was assessed as Level 4 and provides a number of directions staff had to follow to ensure it operated as such – including the transfer out of patients whose needs were beyond the ‘clinical capabilities’ of the local team.

A response from Together Union Lead Organiser Allison Finley-Bissett however claims that in reality the Hervey Bay ICU had been wrongly categorised by the health service as Level 4 when it had been experiencing Level 5 activity for the past eight years.

In a response to the Chronicle this week, WBBHS chief executive Debbie Carroll said the growth in demand for care was “unprecedented”.

“While we’ve made significant recent investment in our local hospitals to increase their capacity and introduce more efficient models of care, the growth that we’re experiencing is beyond what any analyst or expert body predicted for our region,” she said.

“Our leadership team understands our staff are feeling the impact of this growth and demand, and we appreciate their ongoing commitment to providing quality healthcare while under this pressure.

“As always, we continue to be committed to working collaboratively with our staff, local union representatives and Queensland Health as we face these challenges, to ensure our community and patients continue to receive the best possible care now and in the future.”

The health Minister has been contacted for comment.