‘Stress, burnout’: Email exposes internal dramas at major Qld hospital
More than 1000 surgery patients are languishing on the waitlist at one of Queensland’s largest public hospitals, with an internal email exposing the issues health staff are facing.
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More than a thousand surgery patients are languishing on the waitlist at one of Queensland’s largest public hospitals, with an internal email exposing issues of “stress, burnout and unease about the future” among fatigued and overworked health staff.
There were about 1300 surgery patients waiting “longer than clinically recommended” for medical intervention at the Princess Alexandra Hospital as of the end of September, the Chair of Surgery told staff in an email.
And the size of the waitlist was in part due to the need to slim down the surgery timetable after issues were raised by the accreditation body for anaesthetist training, which called for workloads to be reduced “safely” to ensure service and training requirements were met.
The Opposition has used the latest turmoil to further criticise Health Minister Yvette D’Ath, saying it was clear she was unaware of the scale of Queensland’s health crisis.
Ms D’Ath noted the minister’s job did not involve dealing with “operational matters to determine what the clinical decisions should be and managing the day-to-day staffing and operations of any individual hospital”.
The Princess Alexandra Hospital Chair of Surgery Adrian Nowitzke, in a lengthy email to staff on September 26, moved to explain why surgery numbers hadn’t bounced back to pre-Covid levels.
“I would also like to acknowledge the general feeling of stress, burnout and unease about what the future holds,” he said.
Dr Nowitzke outlined how the “recent” wave of Covid-19 had caused workforce shortages, ultimately leading to “a high level of last-minute cancellations” of patients’ surgery appointments.
He said the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists – which is responsible for giving the hospital a tick of approval to train doctors in the specialised field – had inspected the PA Hospital and raised a number of issues.
“They believe we were not providing adequate supervision, that we were chopping and changing our rosters excessively, that we were not providing adequate Clinical Support Time and that we were not staffing the Department in accordance with their guidelines,” Dr Nowitzke wrote.
The College, noting efforts to deal with fatigue, signalled the hospital could meet standards for training accreditation by shedding some workload.
Dr Nowitzke said the hospital had moved to hire more anaesthetists, but the gains had been offset by a “higher than usual number of resignations”.
He also noted the number of anaesthetists the four hospitals across Metro South could hire was not enough, and the way this was decided was “flawed”.
A spokeswoman for Metro South Health said there were 35 anaesthetic registrars at the PA Hospital now and a third round of recruitment was about to commence. It is understood the PA Hospital’s accreditation to train anaesthetists had been extended for 2023.
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