Doctors have no faith in public hospitals’ imaging services

Whistleblowers have exposed the latest crisis gripping Queensland’s health system with calls for an urgent inquiry amid fears lives are at risk.

The state’s doctors have so little faith in the public health system they are referring patients to private radiologists for scans to avoid life-threatening delays, the Australian Medical Association Queensland has revealed.

And the AMAQ president Maria Boulton has called for an urgent inquiry into the scan backlog scandal as whistleblowers at a second hospital claim they are dealing with radiology scan logjams, imaging workforce shortages and million dollar scanners are gathering dust due to staff shortages.

Whistleblowers at Robina Hospital have highlighted “a big waste of taxpayers’ money” with a CAT scanner that is only a few months old and an X-ray machine rarely running.

Robina Hospital’s multimillion-dollar CAT scanner is only a few months old. Picture: Jerad Williams

This comes the day after The Courier-Mail exposed that 54,000 radiology scans sit unreported at the Gold Coast University Hospital and doctors were fearful that cancers or life-threatening conditions would be missed or found too late.

Dr Boulton said that doctors are frustrated and concerned about the wellbeing of their patients. “It is clear this requires an urgent investigation and it must focus on workforce, funding, culture and leadership issues,” she said.

“Some doctors have had to refer patients externally to private radiology providers to ensure scans are performed and reported in an appropriate time frame,” Dr Boulton said.

Health Minister Shannon Fentiman on Thursday announced that her department would do everything possible to clear the “unacceptable” 54,000 unread scans at GCUH.

The massive logjam at the GCUH was revealed by clinicians who were worried about cancers or serious conditions being missed.

Health Minister Shannon Fentiman says the delays are unacceptable. Picture: Richard Walker

Queensland Health said the backlog would be cleared in two to three months but hospital staff say there would not be enough radiologists to achieve that unless the department spends big money on an outsourced contract.

“Money that should have been spent to avoid the problem in the first place,” the source said.

Ms Fentiman said she was not aware of a problem at any other hospital.

Queensland Health told The Courier-Mail they were running a number of initiatives to attract medical staff including radiologists, including a recruitment drive targeting interstate and overseas specialists and financial incentives to entice specialists to move to Queensland to work.

Shadow Health Minister Ros Bates said that “once again the State is at risk of plunging into another health crisis because they cannot properly run the health system”.

“Acting quickly on a radiology result can be life changing, and more critically, it can be life saving for a Queenslander. How has this been allowed to happen?” she said.

A Gold Coast Health spokesman said that a second CAT scanner was installed at Robina Hospital in late 2022. This scanner was to provide a back-up in the event of system down time at Robina Hospital.

“As the radiology workforce grows, the use of this scanner is likely to increase,” the spokesman said.

“While the X-ray machine is operational, emergent leave and workforce shortages do mean rostered operators can be redeployed to the main imaging department to ensure service continuity.

“It is common practice to partner with private sector radiologists to report on medical images, and this continues to occur,” he said.

Originally published as Doctors have no faith in public hospitals’ imaging services