Patients at ‘significant risk’ in NSW hospital staffing crisis

An open letter signed by more than 1300 NSW doctors warns that patients in public hospitals are being put at ‘significant risk’ by a medical staffing crisis.

NSW doctors have spoken of their distress at being unable to keep up with surgical waiting lists or tend to patients in a timely manner.

An open letter signed by more than 1300 NSW doctors warns that patients in public hospitals are being put at “significant risk” by a medical staffing crisis that is hampering medics from delivering the best standard of care.

The doctors have spoken of their distress at being unable to keep up with surgical waiting lists or tend to patients in a timely manner, with an “exodus” of burnt-out staff leaving for jobs interstate.

“Due to poor conditions, unsafe hours and inadequate remuneration, burnt-out medical staff in NSW are reducing their hours or moving interstate where conditions are better,” the open letter says.

“This exodus of staff is placing even more pressure on we who remain in public health services to deliver care as best we can.

“Unfortunately, we are all too aware that we are falling short of providing the best standard of care. We have almost 100,000 patients on elective surgery waitlists. Operating theatres sit empty because we do not have the medical staff required to run them.

“These are not just numbers. These are our patients who we put at significant risk every time they are kept waiting. They are our patients for whom a better quality of life is out of reach when it shouldn’t be. They are children whose parents we disappoint every time surgery is delayed.

“We are deeply disappointed that addressing the medical staffing crisis in our hospitals and improving patient care does not appear to be considered a priority for this government.”

The open letter has been prompted by an ongoing crisis at the The Children’s Hospital at Westmead in which staff have warned critical services including cardiac and transplant surgery are “at risk of collapse”, with paediatric intensive care and anaesthetic services hit by chronic staff shortages.

Intensivists and anaesthetists at the CHW allege the NSW Health Ministry has refused to properly pay overstretched staff overtime or reasonable salaries, leading to a staffing retention and recruitment crisis.

The government has deferred any action on the issue until after this weekend’s state election.

Australian Salaried Medical Officers Federation president Tony Sara said doctors were at breaking point.

Senior staff specialist Kathryn Browning Carmo, co-chair of the NSW Medical Staff Executive Council, said the ranks of talented senior medics were being increasingly thinned in NSW.

The doctors will speak outside The Children’s Hospital at Westmead on Wednesday morning.