Fairfield Hospital GP to close its doors to regulars
Thousands of patients will no longer be welcome at the GP Clinic at Fairfield Hospital when it stops seeing regulars early next year.
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Thousands of patients will no longer be welcome at the GP Clinic at Fairfield Hospital when it stops seeing regulars early next year, leaving them without a trusted doctor as Fairfield’s booming population strains the city’s resources.
The Fairfield Advance can reveal the hospital’s clinic is expected to stop providing general practice services in March of 2019, after 27-years of serving the local community.
The GP Clinic, which treats more than 2900 people each year, is in the process of referring its existing patients to private practices in the area.
A mobile caravan unit – run by the business Australian Medical Cooperative – will open after hours on the hospital grounds. It will focus on seeing new patients only once, triaging them before they are referred to private doctors.
But staff, local politicians and the industry union worry Fairfield doesn’t have the general practice and emergency room resources to offload the treatment of thousands of patients.
“The patients in the community like coming to the GP Unit as all the services are in the one place, such as radiology, pathology, physiotherapy, travel medicine, and above all, kind and caring doctors”, a petition pedalled by staff and patients reads.
“[It] is ideally placed to address problems like gambling, alcohol and drug addiction, refugee health and mental health in the local community.”
The GP Clinic is uniquely set up to deal with the area’s recent influx of 7000 refugee settlers, and doctors on the premises are qualified in the prescription of methadone – a drug used in the treatment of heroin addicts.
State government representatives said the unit will continue its research, evaluation and teaching role, which it coordinates with the University of NSW.
“The [GP Unit] is not closing or moving, it is changing its model of care to better support the health care needs of the community,” the Local Health District spokesperson said.
“The changes to the unit will help focus on some of our most vulnerable people ... We look forward to being able to provide a specialised short-term service to our patients.”
Fairfield’s General Practice Clinic will be the third clinic in NSW to stop treating regular patients in recent times, following those in Campbeltown and Liverpool.
Not offering general practice services will put more pressure on Fairfield Hospital’s emergency room, said Guy Zangari, Labor’s member for Fairfield.
“We know that GPs in the Fairfield community are already at capacity,” he said.
“Losing the GP service from Fairfield Hospital will have a detrimental flow-on effect for the hospital and wider community.”
Approximately eight patients a day visit the General Practice Clinic at Fairfield Hospital. Staff includes two doctors – who the Fairfield Advance understands have formed trusted relationships with patients over their nine and six years of work – and three administrative staff.
The three administrative staff are at risk of losing their jobs in the restructure, said Gerard Hayes of HSU, the industry’s trade union.
“NSW Health needs to let the local community know exactly how it plans to meet the growing needs for health services in the Fairfield region, particularly when the population is growing,” said Mr Hayes.
“There is already a serious shortage of GPs in the area, so any reduction in access to the services provided by the GP Unit will lead to more pressure on local doctors, who are already at capacity.”