Child cardiac row threatens to erupt into state campaign issue

The draining of paediatric cardiac services at a Sydney children’s hospital may erupt as an issue during the state poll campaign.

NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard.

Doctors at one of Sydney’s two children’s hospitals first raised concerns with NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard almost a year ago about the draining of paediatric cardiac services from their campus but the issue has not been resolved and threatens to erupt during the state poll campaign.

Representatives from the medical staff council at Sydney Children’s Hospital at Randwick, in the city’s east, first spoke directly to Mr Hazzard on March 15 last year about their concerns that resources were being shifted to the rival Children’s Hospital at Westmead, in Sydney’s west.

They have since met him four times, in late March, May, ­December and January, but say the problems have not been ­addressed.

The doctors have been particularly concerned about a major reduction in heart surgery at their Randwick hospital, which they warn is placing lives at risk.

They say critically ill children, including newborn babies, are being ferried across town unnecessarily to be operated on at Westmead, which cannot cope with the load.

The Australian revealed last year that 134 children had their cardiac surgery cancelled at Westmead in a six-month period.

Randwick-based doctors said a major proportion could have been operated on at Randwick but services there were being “wilfully under-utilised”.

Opposition Leader Michael Daley vowed this month to restore paediatric cardiac services at Randwick, saying Labor would, if elected, fund three more full-time cardiologists, an independent cardiac director and an extra cardiothoracic surgeon at the hospital.

Mr Hazzard said Labor had “no idea of the complexity of the issue”, which was “essentially a difference of clinical opinion by some as to how the service should operate”.

Instead, he ordered a series of reviews. One, by an “independent expert facilitator” last year, has not been publicly released.

Last month, he ordered a new review of governance of the hospital network, with his department to seek monthly updates.

The issue appears unlikely to be resolved before writs are issued on March 4 for the March 23 vote.

Westmead-based specialists say complex paediatric heart surgery should be concentrated on just one site, but the Randwick doctors say their results are as good as or better than those at Westmead, and cardiac services are needed to support all other specialities at the hospital, which is also a major teaching hospital.

Management of cardiac ser­vices at the two hospitals was merged in 2012 and a Westmead-based cardiologist, Gary Sholler, was put in charge. He quit his position last month and Randwick doctors fear another Westmead doctor will be put in charge.

Frustration at Randwick reached boiling point last month, with the medical staff council passing motions of no confidence in the executive and board and network management structure.

At their face-to-face meeting with Mr Hazzard last March, Randwick doctors said they had made “repeated calls” over five years to ensure an “equitable delivery of cardiac services to Randwick” but Westmead-based doctors had “dismantled” their service, and “presented an ever-expanding list of excuses to prevent surgery happening at Randwick”. They said Westmead’s demand for more resources was “politically motivated”.