West Moreton health staff, services celebrated for five-year achievements

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30 July 2021

A five-year snapshot of West Moreton Hospital and Health Service highlights the achievements of hospitals and staff in managing significant increases in emergency department presentations and surgeries.

Queensland Health Director General Dr John Wakefield said several factors, including population growth, aging population, falling private health insurance rates, and more recently, the global pandemic, were responsible for the high demand on health services.

“COVID-19 has had a severe impact on our hospitals in the past 18 months,” Dr Wakefield said.

“Whilst we have been successful in minimising community transmission of COVID-19, it was necessary to divert significant staffing into our public health response, testing, tracking and tracing, hotel quarantine, and mass vaccination”.

“There has also been a continued surge in demand for public health services over the past five years, including an extraordinary rise in emergency department presentations and referrals to specialist outpatient services”.

“We are also performing more surgeries as the state’s rate of chronic illnesses like obesity, diabetes and heart disease goes up. A growing number of Queenslanders are also ditching their private health insurance and turning to the public health system for treatment.

“We also have a high number of patients spending long periods of time in hospitals while they wait for aged care or disability packages, leading to significant impact on availability of hospital beds. Importantly, hospital is not an appropriate alternative to home or a residential care for the most vulnerable in our society who deserve better.

“While we have significantly increased funding and hired more staff to support both our pandemic response and the everyday delivery of healthcare, it’s no secret the pressure placed on our facilities has been immense.

“In spite of the constant pressure of dealing with unstoppable demand growth, our staff work 24/7 and do an amazing job in providing world class healthcare to all Queenslanders, no matter where they live.

“I commend and celebrate West Moreton HHS’s hard-working staff and the health services for these achievements.”

West Moreton Health Chief Operating Officer Matthew Tallis said fewer surgeries were conducted at Ipswich Hospital in 2020-21 (7043) than in 2015-16 (7284) due to the postponement of about 1300 elective surgeries in 2020-21, a period that included a significant COVID-19 outbreak.

“Before the pandemic, we were seeing consistent year-on-year growth in surgeries performed at Ipswich Hospital,” Mr Tallis said.

“Between July 2020 and May 2021, about 1300 elective surgeries were either postponed or outsourced to another hospital while we contained six simultaneous cluster outbreaks of COVID-19.”

Between 2015-16 and 2020-21 West Moreton HHS’s hospitals reported:

  • 49 per cent increase in emergency department presentations (from more than 60,900 to more than 90,630)
  • Continued to perform more than 7,000 surgeries each year
  • 51 per cent increase in outpatient appointments (from more than 164,540 to more than 249,770)
  • Continued to deliver more than 2,500 babies each year, including private facilities in the region.

In the same period, West Moreton HHS’s annual operating budget had increased from $469 million to more than $691 million, a 47 per cent growth.

The HHS’s total workforce has grown from 2,934 to 3,855 people (a 31 per cent increase), including 343 to 461 doctors, 1,275 to 1,780 nurses and 90 to 126 midwives.

Quarterly performance data for West Moreton Hospital and Health Service has been released today, available on the website here.