A Catholic private hospital in Hobart will reopen its emergency department 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with hopes it can ease some of the stress on the hospital system. Source: ABC News.
In March 2022, Calvary Lenah Valley Hospital shut its emergency department on weekends due to staffing issues.
“In order to provide a safe service, we made the really difficult decision at that time,” the regional chief executive of Calvary, Melissa Evans, said.
“We did mid-year, introduce six days a week, but we couldn’t sustain it – we just couldn’t find the medical staff we needed.”
The emergency department will now be staffed with medical specialists employed by Care 24-7 – an extension of an arrangement operating in Calvary’s Adelaide hospital.
“They’re providing the medical staff, we’re providing the actual physical facility, nursing staff and support staff,” Ms Evans said.
Care 24-7 managing director Dr Sharad Pandit said Care 24-7 had also struggled with recruitment in recent years, and throughout the COVID pandemic, but had seen recent success recruiting internationally and at home.
The Lenah Valley emergency department has 15 treatment spaces and currently services between 25 and 40 patients a day.
Anyone can present to the emergency department – whether they have private health insurance or not – and they will each be charged $260 out of pocket.
To be admitted to the hospital after the ED visit, patients will need private health insurance.
“We didn’t have availability of services on the weekend, so we couldn’t deal with the sports-related injuries that occur on the weekend,” said Dr Christopher Gavaghan, the medical director of the Calvary ED.
Government Minister Nic Street called the reopening of the Calvary ED a “positive sign” but that a “multi-pronged approach” was needed.
“That means that we need better primary care as well, so that people get into GP that they can afford so they can avoid ending up at the door of an emergency department,” he said.
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