SPEAKING OUT!

The Community walkers have begun their 53km two day walk from the Blue Mountains Hospital in Katoomba to Nepean Hosital in Penrith. In attendance were local ALP member Phil Koperberg, and Opposition State Health Spokesperson, Jillian Skinner.

The staff from the Hospital involved in the "Who Will Speak For Us" Blog would like to say

THANK YOU!

SMH: Heartbreak Hospitals- The NSW Hospital Crisis.

Heartbreak hospitals

SMH 21/11/09

...Garling nailed the inadequacies and tragedies of the health system as they had never been nailed before. His 139 recommendations - released a year ago next Friday - provided a rallying point for change that doctors, nurses and the State Government seemed almost universally to agree on.

But just one year on, the feel-good moment may already have passed. Despite notable bright spots, separate reports this week by the Australian Medical Association and an independent audit committee charged with measuring progress point in the same general direction: to well-intended reform plans that are bogging down in the same ponderous bureaucracy they were designed to address...

....Hospitals, Garling told the Herald recently, are ''probably the most complex government enterprise''. Forty per cent of NSW's 100,000-strong workforce are doctors, nurses or other tertiary-qualified clinicians, all with independent professional traditions and strong views on patient care that may not coincide happily with flow charts and memos from central office....[READ MORE]

BMG: HEAL & Bipartisan Politicians To Walk from Katoomba Hospital To Nepean Hospital

In an earlier post, we pointed out the 51km distance between Katoomba Hospital and Nepean Hospital. To highlight this distance, members of the Community Lobby group HEAL together with some high profile politicians are going to walk the distance over two days on 28th-29th November 2009. Please lend your support!

Hitting the road for Katoomba Hospital

11 Nov, 2009 11:56 AM

Blue Mountains Hospital Equity and Access Lobby (HEAL) has applauded the combined efforts of NSW opposition health spokesperson Jillian Skinner and Member for Blue Mountains Phil Koperberg for delivering a strongly-worded motion in State Parliament about the provision of services at Katoomba Hospital.

Mrs Skinner first brought the motion, calling on the Government to honour its promise to keep the hospital’s maternity unit permanently open, to Parliament in October 2008 but it was not passed and debated.

Last month the motion was unanimously passed in the Legislative Assembly after an amendment by Mr Koperberg was included — for acknowledgment of current concerns about staff recruitment and calling on the Government to direct Sydney West Area Health Service to do all that is necessary to permanently maintain services at Katoomba Hospital.

“We really appreciate their efforts in bringing this motion before Parliament, especially the amendment by Mr Koperberg,” HEAL spokesperson and Blue Mountains deputy mayor Janet Mays said.

The lobby group has planned a two-day walk from Katoomba to Nepean Hospitals for November 28 and 29 to emphasise the distance involved and the importance of maintaining health services in the Blue Mountains.

Mrs Skinner has agreed to walk with HEAL members from Katoomba Hospital to Wentworth Falls and Mr Koperberg has confirmed he will meet the walkers at his Springwood office.

“HEAL is hopeful of meeting the NSW Minister for Health at the completion of the walk to hand her a letter requesting that Katoomba Hospital be reclassified as a rural hospital and that current service and bed closures be prioritised for re-opening,” Ms Mays said.

http://www.bluemountainsgazette.com.au/news/local/news/general/hitting-the-road-for-katoomba-hospital/1674443.aspx

SMH: Children's Ward Bed Closures at Nepean

Bungling over redundancies leaves hospital short of beds

LOUISE HALL AND NATASHA WALLACE

November 4, 2009

SICK children are spending days stuck in the emergency department of a Sydney hospital because of a bungled plan to lay off hundreds of health-care workers.

Eight pediatric beds at Nepean Hospital have been closed because two experienced nurses took voluntary redundancy, despite assurances by the State Government that no front-line staff would be affected.

The Sydney West Area Health Service has been calling for redundancies but NSW Health intervened six weeks ago to stop more frontline staff leaving.

The director of emergency at Nepean Hospital, Rod Bishop, said the nursing redundancies and long-term understaffing meant the system was not coping. ''I have never seen it this bad in my nearly 30 years in the public hospital system,'' Dr Bishop said.

The decision to cut staff led to the closure of ward beds, including the eight pediatric beds. ''We've had children here for two days because there's not enough beds for them to be admitted to.''...........READ MORE

Another Victory- Mental Health Unit Beds Reopen (BMG)

Katoomba Hospital mental health unit back at full capacity

BY DAMIEN MADIGAN

4/11/2009 9:19:00 AM

Katoomba Hospital’s mental health unit is operating at full capacity again, four weeks after the Gazette revealed five of its 15 beds were closed due to a staff shortage.

A Sydney West Area Health Service (SWAHS) spokesperson confirmed on Monday that a new doctor had started work in the hospital’s mental health unit.........“If community advocates don’t keep the spotlight on — and I’m regularly attacked for keeping the spotlight on — these things just hang for a long, long time,”.......READ MORE