Ballina Electorate Health Services

Mr DONALD PAGE (Ballina) [10.52 a.m.]: I again raise my serious concerns about declining health services in the Ballina electorate. In March I brought to the attention of the House doctor shortages, which are currently being experienced by Ballina, Byron Bay and Mullumbimby hospitals, and the removal of the mobile breast-screening vans from Ballina, Byron Bay and Mullumbimby. I am contacted more and more frequently by concerned constituents about the numerous cuts in health services, which are having a seriously detrimental affect on our local community. It is without doubt the number one concern that people in the Ballina electorate raise with me. Yet another health service has been severely cut back in Ballina. Since the end of March the operations of the Nexus Centre, which provides community mental health rehabilitation services, have been cut back from five days a week to two days a week.

The Nexus Centre is a vital service that provides rehabilitation for people living with mental illness, and invaluable support for their families. I am hearing reports, albeit unofficial as no-one is willing to risk their job to go on the public record, that staff shortages in local hospitals are putting patients at risk. There are severe shortages of doctors, nurses and other front-line staff, as well as a lack of essential supplies such as medicines and basic medical equipment. There is little doubt that patient care is deteriorating through a lack of resources and support from the New South Wales Labor Government. I can only imagine the frustration and stress that front-line medical staff are experiencing in the rapidly declining public health system. It seems that when doctors and nurses commit to working in regional New South Wales they have to accept there is little or no relief and chronic understaffing. Hospitals are being run with the primary objective of meeting the bottom line rather than looking after patient care.

My electorate of Ballina is hardly in the sticks. Incorporating Ballina, Lennox Head, Byron Bay and a beautiful hinterland, it is regarded as one of the most desirable places in New South Wales to live—yet it struggles to attract doctors. What hope is there for the rest of regional New South Wales? Doctors and other medical staff are in contact with me on a regular basis. They are demoralised, overworked and tired. They want to help people—to treat them and make them better. They do not want to be worried constantly about the next round of job cuts and whether adequate professional staff are available to look after patients. The State Government gets its own doctors—the masters of spin—to put a glossy sheen on how much it is doing to improve the health system. Area health services, like the North Coast Area Health Service, then have the difficult job of juggling resources to provide base levels of care at the cheapest possible price.

As I have said before, the North Coast Area Health Service is underfunded by $54 million a year according to the Government's resource distribution formula. People living in the Northern Rivers, which includes my electorate, are being told how good the surge bed program is. The program involves keeping a certain number of beds in a hospital closed until they are required, and then they are re-opened. The theory is that once the demand passes, they are closed again. This program was trialled in Ballina. How successful was it? That depends on who you talk to. The North Coast Area Health Service says it was so successful that it is to be implemented in other hospitals. But if you talk to doctors and unions representing staff on the front line they will tell you the program was a failure.

Doctor Colin Macdonald, the Chairman of the Ballina District Hospital Medical Staff Council, tells me that when a surge occurs no extra staff are available to look after the additional patients. Nurse numbers are at the bare minimum so there is no backup when unpredicted surges occur. Patients who need immediate care are transported elsewhere, which has to be very dangerous for patients. It is all well and good to say the beds will be available when demand arises, but not enough nurses are available to service those beds. We are effectively talking about closed beds, not surge beds. Doctor Macdonald also tells me he received information late last month about serious changes planned for the North Coast Area Health Service that visiting medical officers have not been consulted about.

The planned changes reduce clinical staff and bed numbers, and will result in a further reduction in the quality of healthcare in the Northern Rivers. Where does that fit in with the State Government's pledge to implement more than 130 of the 139 recommendations of the Garling report? Some doctors in my electorate who are visiting medical officers are disillusioned and reviewing their roles. Doctors are tired of having to justify the lack of resources to patients and their families. Take, for example, one doctor who recently informed me that 10 of the 18 beds in the new Transitional Care Unit at Ballina Hospital are in darkness. He told me that one of his patients died recently waiting for one of the beds. All this is happening while the Labor Government tells us how committed it is to improving the health system. I call on the Government to give the North Coast Area Health Service the extra $54 million to which it is entitled under the resource distribution formula, to enable it to address the issues I have raised.