Revealed: Lack of overnight hospital beds in new hospitals planned for the Coast

A new satellite hospital is coming to the southern Gold Coast, but there’s a catch – it won’t have overnight beds. FULL DETAILS >>>

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A NEW satellite hospital is coming to the southern Gold Coast, but there’s a catch – it won’t have overnight beds.

Gold Coast Health CEO Ron Calvert made the admission during questioning at Estimates hearings in State Parliament.

Opposition health spokesperson Ros Bates and LNP leader David Crisafulli at a town-hall meeting on health at Pimpama on the northern Gold Coast.

The state Opposition says it fuels fears that the 28-bed facility earmarked for Tugun will be a community clinic rather than relieve pressure on the region’s busy hospital emergency departments.

LNP leader David Crisafulli, who last month heard at a town hall forum of resident’s concerns about health services in the city’s north, urged patients not to turn their anger on staff.

“If I had a message today, what I’ve found most humbling, is no-one has made this about the staff. Everyone acknowledges the people on the frontline are doing their absolute best,” he said.

But he said the system was “under resourced and poorly focused” and reforms were needed now, not when the LNP potentially won government in four years.

Opposition health spokesperson Ros Bates estimates the Coast needs another 800 beds, yet the government’s announcement of a $165m expansion allowed for only 28.

Plans for a new hospital in Coomera do not detail bed numbers.

The planned sister satellite hospital at Tugun is now also unlikely to reduce pressure on emergency departments at Gold Coast University and Robina hospitals where latest research shows half of the people arriving wait in an ambulance.

Mr Calvert told Estimates: “We are not planning on putting overnight beds in Tugun.

“There are limits to how many sites you can ask medical staff to cover in the FIRM (staffing) system. We do not like to work on more than three sites overnight.”

LNP health spokesperson Ros Bates and LNP leader David Crisafulli at a town-hall meeting on health at Pimpama at the northern Gold Coast.

Mr Calvert told the hearing he “never expected (the hospital) to be anywhere else” after an almost 18-month wait for the location to be announced.

Labor promised the hospital as a key southern election pledge before the 2020 poll.

The planned satellite hospitals are being promoted by the government as a solution to the overcrowding of EDs at Gold Coast University and Robina.

But Ms Bates labelled the Tugun project a “community day-clinic”.

“A hospital has a theatre, emergency department and overnight beds,” Ms Bates said outside Parliament. “Labor’s satellite hospitals were announced in marginal seats.

“The state government duped the people of Queensland. If your child has an asthma attack or your grandparent breaks a hip, a satellite hospital won’t be useful.”

Plans obtained by the Bulletin show the Coomera hospital includes two six-level buildings, above-ground car parks and other facilities, but it could take six years to build.

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