Logan Hospital’s makeshift ward under fire

A proposed temporary medical ward at Logan has been compared with a television comedy’s makeshift tent hospital.

TV doctors BJ Hunnicutt and Hawkeye outside the Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH) unit on the popular television series of the same name.

A POP-UP ward to be craned in to Logan Hospital grounds has been dubbed the MASH unit by medical staff.

The makeshift 27-bed demountable building will be set up next to the hospital’s emergency department.

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It is understood it will be used to look after patients until beds become available inside the hospital.

Medical staff were told about plans for the drop-in ward at a leadership conference in Brisbane last week with some reportedly comparing it with the makeshift medical camp portrayed in the hit television comedy of doctors and nurses in the Korean War.

Logan Hospital is set for a $280 million expansion.

The unit is expected to ease pressure on the hospital this year before next year’s $280 million expansion for 192 more beds.

State Opposition Health Spokeswoman Ros Bates says staff are calling a demountable building at Logan Hospital the MASH unit.

Executive director Logan Bayside Health Network Dr Jacinta Powell said the state had also committed $1.5 million to fast-track a new Clinical Decision Unit for Mental Health which was undergoing tender and design and would be ready by 2020.

She said the Mental Health CDU was not to be confused with the rapid expansion project involving temporary medical units and custom-built wards to rapidly increase bed capacity at the hospital.

She also said there had been no change to meals for patients in the short-stay unit with breakfast and a hot dinner served every day with sandwiches for lunch.

Last month it was revealed bed shortages at the hospital meant some mental health patients were being treated in corridors.

State Opposition Health spokeswoman Ros Bates said: “We need a permanent solution where we have more beds in major hospitals. Rather than wasting money renaming hospitals, or massive blowouts worth hundreds of millions of dollars, that should be the priority.

“Doctors are speaking out, patients are sleeping in hallways and ambulance stretchers are lined up at the door.”

State Health Minister Steven Miles said “rapid expansion wards” had worked well in other parts of the state.

“They’ve proven an effective interim solution that mean we can treat more patients sooner,” he said.