Claims of critical understaffing at Kingaroy Hospital

A loss of medical staff across the South Burnett is impacting frontline health workers and their ability to provide essential care to patients, with one saying she waited nine hours for pain relief after presenting to the hospital with serious injuries.

Health workers and patients are suffering from a chronic understaffing and lack of resources at Kingaroy Hospital, it has been claimed this week.

Queensland Nurses and Midwives' Union secretary Beth Mohle said she was concerned a decrease in medical coverage could impact the region’s frontline nurses and their ability to provide care to patients.

“We know that nurses and midwives state-wide are experiencing burn-out, stress and exhaustion, as a result of increased demand and chronic understaffing,” Ms Mohle said.

“Once again, the problem of understaffing highlights the urgent need for a state-wide health workforce plan,” she said.

Earlier in September 2022, the QNWU conducted a survey identifying ways to build a sustainable nursing and midwifery workforce.

More than 6000 QNWU members participated and were asked to identify the “biggest barriers” to remain working in the industry.

A total of 78.42% of participants identified dangerous workloads as the biggest barrier, 76.13% said moral distress and fatigue, and 63.06% said insufficient income.

“It’s given our members an opportunity to voice their concerns about dangerously excessive workloads, poor pay and working conditions – and how they’re affecting retention,” Ms Mohle said.

Beth Mohle from QNWU says nurses are overworked and burned out.

South Burnett resident Chelsea Kerr said she waited nine hours at Kingaroy Hospital with serious injuries and no pain relief, and watched nurses get abused by patients who had been waiting less time than her.

“This is extremely concerning and the government needs to be doing something to get more nurses and doctors to this hospital so that patients can be properly cared for,” she said.

Nanango resident Christina Coleman said that seeing a different doctor each visit made it difficult for some people to get an accurate diagnosis and in turn the best treatment for symptoms.

“You could go as far as saying this system of shortages can lead to shorter quality of life,” she said.

Patients requiring urgent assistance have waited up to nine hours at Kingaroy Hospital before receiving help.

A Darling Downs Health spokesperson said internationally and nationally, they were seeing significant recruitment drives for frontline clinicians and that the health service had been transparent in the challenges of attracting and retaining suitably qualified clinicians to some of rural locations.

“Darling Downs Health has undertaken several successful recruitments of senior leadership positions recently with the newest hospital in the state a key drawcard for skilled practitioners,” he said.

“We remain focused on our patients and communities to provide the services, care and treatment they require.”

Nurses and midwives are experiencing burn-out, stress and exhaustion.

Nanango MP Deb Frecklington said that in early August, 200 community members and nurses attended a Health Crisis Meeting in Kingaroy to share stories about local hospital services, demand change and fight for better health care.

“I also met with nurses from the Kingaroy Hospital who told me about the ongoing problems they are facing in their roles each and every day,” Mrs Frecklington said.

“These include serious staff safety issues, short-staffed shifts, chronic understaffing and dangerous maintenance issues.

“There must be urgent action to address these problems and in Parliament recently, I called on the Minister for Health to take these concerns seriously and support our health care workers,” she said.

Mrs Mohle said there were solutions that could be implemented right now to retain the current skilled workforce and buy the government time to recruit the next generation of nurses and midwives.

“The time for action is now, nurses and midwives and the people they care for can’t wait any longer,” she said.