Surgeon Dr Angus Gray says Sydney kids will die if Sydney Children’s Hospital in Randwick and Westmead spat continues

Senior doctors at the Sydney Children’s Hospital in Randwick have warned that “children will die” if cardiac surgery services are allowed to “decay” further because of a resourcing dispute with their sister facility at Westmead.

Senior doctors at the Sydney Children’s Hospital in Randwick have warned that “children will die” if cardiac surgery services are allowed to “decay” further because of a resourcing dispute with their sister facility at Westmead.

A letter sent to NSW Health from the council representing 150 top staff at Randwick Hospital has escalated their ongoing spat with Westmead, and prompted a frustrated Health Minister Brad Hazzard to demand the two sides stop bickering.

The hospitals were amalgamated in 2010 in bid to ensure appropriate funding and service delivery across the city.

Sydney Children’s Hospital Randwick

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Dr Angus Gray, the acting head of the Senior Medical Staff Council at Randwick, warned the cardiac resourcing crisis at the hospital had “deteriorated, with surgery essentially ground to a halt” since March last year.

“Children will die at SCH without a fully functioning cardiac surgery dept. Regularly we see cases where children’s lives were saved due to emergency cardiac surgical input at Randwick,” Dr Gray wrote in the letter, obtained by The Daily Telegraph.

The Children's Hospital Westmead.

In the letter, staff at Randwick threatened to walk away from the Sydney Children’s Hospital Network entirely or to join forces with the Royal Hospital for Women as an ­alternative.

The letter follows revelations in The Daily Telegraph last month that the council unanimously passed a vote of no-confidence in the Sydney Children’s Hospital Network over concerns staff at Westmead were running a campaign to drain cardiac services from Randwick.

NSW Minister for Health Brad Hazzard

The letter was sent to NSW Health Secretary Elizabeth Koff and Sydney Children’s Hospital Network chief executive Dr Michael Brydon, who is in charge of the east and west hospitals co-operating.

Dr Gray wrote that doctors had “became dismayed as the service (both surgical and medical) slowly decayed” in the dispute.

Mr Hazzard said that the dispute boiled down to “a difference of opinion as to who’s patch these services should be provided on” between two groups of world class cardiac surgeons.

“They really need to put aside their apparent animosity and come to an arrangement in the interests of patients,” Mr Hazzard said yesterday.

“Patients should come first and last and that’s it.”

Head doctors at the Sydney Children’s Hospital in Randwick have warned that “children will die” if cardiac surgery services are allowed to “decay”

SOMEONE FOR TEENS TO TALK TO

By Danielle Le Messurier

Every NSW public high school will have its own counsellor or psychologist, along with a student support officer, to provide extra help for teenagers struggling with anxiety or bullying under a new plan from the state government.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian yesterday visited Mount Annan High School to announce that the Coalition would fund 450 extra staff — comprising 100 full-time psychologists or counsellors and 350 student support officers — if voted back into power at next month’s state election.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian yesterday visited Mount Annan High School for the announcement.

“The support can range from things such as advice on careers, advice on anxiety or stress or bullying, or other issues which young adults or students have to cope with every day,” she said.

The plan would be a first for NSW with many schools currently only able to access a counsellor or psychologist on a part-time basis.

Most have to work across multiple schools.

Originally published as Surgeon Dr Angus Gray says Sydney kids will die if Sydney Children’s Hospital in Randwick and Westmead spat continues