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The hospital where you can have an emergency only during business hours

By Catherine Naylor

Susan Marshall recalls patients turning up in the back of a ute nursing snakebites or farm injuries when she started working at Wee Waa Hospital in the 1990s.

“We could manage a lot of stuff ourselves then,” said the registered nurse, who resigned in 2023. “If they needed further care we could admit them … that doesn’t happen now.”

Wee Waa Hospital’s emergency department is no longer open 24 hours.

Wee Waa Hospital’s emergency department is no longer open 24 hours.Credit: Facebook

The hospital once delivered babies and performed surgery, but since May 2023 it has been reduced to an emergency department open 8am to 5.30pm, with doctors available on a screen. Patients needing further care travel 40 kilometres to Narrabri.

It’s a familiar story across regional NSW, where cutbacks and staff shortages have sparked concern city bureaucrats do not understand the needs of rural communities.

“I see it as a really big central piece of the jigsaw puzzle of our community, which supports all the agriculture and industries and education in our town,” hospital auxiliary committee president Anne Weekes said.

“It’s the certainty of knowing that medical help is right there in town, or if you live on a farm, as I did for a long time, knowing how many minutes it’s going to take to get to medical help.”

Anne Weekes at Wee Waa Hospital: “The hospital is part of the fabric of the town.”

Anne Weekes at Wee Waa Hospital: “The hospital is part of the fabric of the town.”

The service cuts, including to the 24-hour emergency service and to the palliative care ward, which closed in 2022, had left her “terribly sad”.

“I’ve lived here for 52 years, and my three children and two granddaughters were all born at Wee Waa Hospital … the hospital is part of the fabric of the town.”

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State member for Barwon Roy Butler said Hunter New England Local Health District, which runs Wee Waa, was preoccupied with its “jewel in the crown” – John Hunter Hospital in Newcastle.

Meanwhile, he said bush hospitals suffered and not enough was being done to recruit workers to restore services at Wee Waa.

Local MP Roy Butler talks to locals outside Wee Waa Hospital.

Local MP Roy Butler talks to locals outside Wee Waa Hospital.

“Why can’t the health district add a bit more urgency here?” Butler said, adding Western NSW Local Health District had managed to find staff for Nyngan Hospital when faced with similar challenges last year.

Hunter New England LHD apologised to Wee Waa patients. It said it would restore 24-hour emergency “once it is safe to do so” and that it was advertising for staff.

Narrabri Shire Council wants Health Minister Ryan Park to hold an inquiry into the decision-making regarding the hospital. Park did not respond to a question about that request, but said the government was trying to get workers into country NSW, including by doubling an incentive payment.

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The Australian Medical Association said country hospitals relied on visiting medical officers as doctors. However, their pay conditions had not been updated since 2007, and they were often offered unattractive short-term contracts.

“It is very difficult to move to a new town and commit to that community when you cannot secure a mortgage or be assured your children can remain in the local school for more than a few months,” NSW AMA president Kathryn Austin said.

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Original URL: https://www.smh.com.au/link/follow-20170101-p5ky8v