" Bed Block " !

Here we go again !   Illawarra ambulance paramedics are now experiencing " bed block "  when they bring patients to Wollongong's primary hospital.  One crew was stuck in the car park for eleven hours waiting for the triage system to clear and in that time ambulances were being diverted to the Illawarra from southern Sydney and Shoalhaven because local ambulances were stuck  in the queue at Wollongong hospital.

Money has been spent to enlarge the number of treatment bays in the emergency department to relieve this situation.  Now the problem is lack of beds to allow patient flow from the emergency department into the wards.  As a result, diverting ambulances from other areas is bringing in drivers unfamiliar with this city - and robbing other areas of the vehicles needed for a quick response to their needs.

Wollongong hospital blames the incidence of winter flu on increased numbers  of patients presenting for treatment, but the answer to this problem is staring the health department in the face.   We have a perfectly good hospital sitting idle just a few miles away at Bulli.   It has an emergency department, but ambulances are forbidden to take patients there - and it often is totally closed to the public.

The reason Wollongong hospital has bed block is because it holds patients who could be moved to regional hospitals such as Bulli for their recovery phase.  The reason this does not happen - is political.   It is all a matter of money.   The previous Labor government undertook a deliberate campaign to downgrade Bulli hospital with the aim of closing it completely.   The present state government seems to have adopted an identical approach.   Bulli is starved for funds and it's facilities under used to maintain the illusion that is it no longer needed.   It sits on valuable northern suburbs land and this is seen as a source of future funds to be injected into the health system.

A little common sense could easily solve the bed  flow problems at Wollongong hospital.   Keep the Bulli emergency department open for minor cases, and use the skills of the paramedics to triage those patients that need minor attention - such as stitches to close a cut - and remove that load from the main emergency room at Wollongong's primary hospital.

The other obvious need is to transfer those patients in their final recovery mode to Bulli, thus freeing up ward beds to allow the patient flow from Wollongong's emergency department to be cleared, easing the incidence of " bed block " and allowing the ambulance paramedics to get on with the job of attending emergencies.

It is obvious why this is not being done.  Closing Bulli is still a high priority wish on the mind of the health department, and nothing will be done to alter the image of Bulli as a fading institution, and to bring idle beds at Bulli into service would require money - which the health department lacks.

So - beds lay idle at Bulli while Wollongong has a space problem, and the meat in the sandwich are the paramedics - who spend hours attending to the patients that the emergency department can not speedily clear.

That sounds like a script from that excellent comedy - " Yes Minister ! "