Coronavirus: Queensland border closure prompts transplant contingency
One of Queensland’s biggest public hospitals has asked Sydney’s Royal Prince Alfred to be prepared to perform kidney transplants on northern NSW patients.
One of Queensland’s biggest public hospitals has asked Sydney’s Royal Prince Alfred to be prepared to perform kidney transplants on northern NSW patients because of potential border closure complications.
The plan was hatched as a contingency in case Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s border stance led to a backlog of patients unable to access needed surgery.
RPA head of kidney transplantation Steven Chadban told The Australian 17 to 20 northern NSW patients were active on the kidney transplant waiting list.
In normal times, because of their proximity to Brisbane and the Princess Alexandra hospital, the surgery would be performed in Queensland, “but since the border closure, there’s been a lot of conjecture, mostly from patients, about whether their families and loved ones would have to quarantine for 14 days (if the organ transplant happened interstate),” Professor Chadban said.
As a contingency, he said the PA hospital approached the RPA hospital to ask the Sydney institution to be prepared to take northern NSW patients should “border crossings become problematic”.
“It’s something (both hospitals) felt patients needed (for) peace of mind … If it never comes to fruition, so be it.”
After an outpouring of stories from NSW residents who had suffered because of being denied care in nearby Brisbane, Ms Palaszczuk on Tuesday ordered a new unit to fast-track border exemptions for certain cases. The unit will be staffed by doctors, nurses and social workers and will be established in the Chief Health Officer’s department by the end of the week.
Transplantation Society of Australia and New Zealand president Toby Coates, the director of transplant medicine at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, said he was not aware of any patient missing out on a transplant because of the border closures.
“We haven’t seen organs going to waste because of COVID,” he said.
Dr Coates said Ms Palaszczuk’s announcement of a special unit to fast-track medical border exemptions was “an excellent solution”.
A Queensland Health spokesman said the department was “continuing to provide medical care to patients in northern NSW.
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