Hervey Bay stroke survivor Kerrie Pollington reveals how Telestroke service helped save her life

A Qld woman says she is alive because a new system, where strokes are diagnosed and “clot-busting” drugs given within minutes, is being piloted at her regional hospital. It comes ahead of a statewide rollout.

Kerrie Pollington’s mother died because by the time her stroke was treated, it was too late.

So, when a paramedic told Mrs Pollington she too was having a stroke, she feared the same outcome.

Luckily for her, Hervey Bay Hospital had just weeks earlier become the pilot site for a new Telestroke service, a system where regional doctors can treat strokes straight away thanks to tech and access to city specialists who review clear imaging showing what’s happening in the brain and where in real time and recommend the best course of action including clot-dissolving drugs.

According to Queensland Health, since September last year, nearly 100 patients have been treated via Telestroke, nine of whom received emergency treatment with “clot busting” drugs and two transferred to Brisbane for emergency clot retrieval.

The aim is to significantly reduce a patient’s chance of death or disability.

Speaking to reporters in Hervey Bay on Friday alongside Queensland Health Minister Tim Nicholls, who was announcing a statewide rollout of the service, Mrs Pollington said she’d felt unwell the morning of her stroke but believed she had a virus.

It was only when she went to visit a friend that his wife told her she was “slurring”.

She then fell through their door, broke her nose and in the ambulance was told “Kerrie, you’re having a stroke”.

Stroke survivor Kerrie Pollington speaks to media with Qld Health Minister Tim Nicholls about the Telestroke service which saved her life at Hervey Bay hospital.

After her images were taken onsite, they were sent to a specialist, and she was given drugs which were so effective her transfer to Brisbane hospital was cancelled.

Mrs Pollington had no doubt the service saved her life, telling reporters the newly trained team at Hervey Bay were “on the pulse straight away” in what was a frightening emergency and while she was sometimes a “bit foggy” and her left foot a bit heavy, “I’m here now”.

Residents living in regional Queensland are more than 17 per cent more likely to have a stroke than those in metro areas but Telestroke Director Dr Claire Muller said there remained “gross inequities” in access to specialist care outside major cities.

She said for stroke victims, every minute was a day in terms of how the stroke would impact their life the further it was able to progress and this service meant that scans which would have previously been sent out with hours-long waits for diagnosis could not get to specialists like her within minutes.

Junior doctors and nurses underwent intensive training ahead of the program’s inception in September last year and Queensland Health now plans on rolling it out to multiple hospitals in the coming months along with $5.8 million in annual funding.

“All Queenslanders deserve access to world class healthcare, no matter where they live,” Mr Nicholls said in a statement.

“It is about supporting our local health heroes to be able to continue to do the incredible work they do, helping out local communities each day.”

‘EMPTY CURTAINS TO 35 BEDS BUT ABOUT THAT CAR PARK …’

Mr Nicholls was also in town providing an update on major expansions underway at Hervey Bay hospital.

He said he’d met with former four-term LNP member Ted Sorensen earlier in the day who’d recalled how the new hospital building where the emergency department is now housed had opened with much fanfare several years ago but that the second level had remained empty with “no beds or curtains on the windows”.

A monster crane can be seen at the hospital alongside scaffolding around the second level which will house 25 medical inpatient beds and a 10-bed Intensive Care Unit along with new rooftop helipad.

The 24-bed medical modular ward announced by Labor last year will also open as flagged.

A massive crane can be seen next to scaffolding at Hervey Bay hospital where upgrades are underway.

However, while the newly elected LNP Government is progressing with those two projects, one promised by Hervey Bay’s former Labor MP Adrian Tantari won’t go ahead as planned.

Mr Tantari had campaigned on the line that a $60 million, 550-space multistorey car park had been delivered for the electorate and funding locked in.

However, Mr Nicholls claimed on Friday that the former Government had not dedicated any money in the budget to build it.

Instead, to “address immediate parking pressures”, the existing staff carpark will be expanded, freeing up to 200 spaces for hospital visitors.

Work is expected to start this year.

Originally published as Hervey Bay stroke survivor Kerrie Pollington reveals how Telestroke service helped save her life