Young District Hospital has been without a doctor – including on-call physicians – on at least six dates in the last five months, raising concern in the town.
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These dates, confirmed by the hospital, include two days in a row in July and twice this month where there was no doctor in the emergency department throughout the day.
The Witness understands there may have been more dates than this as members of the public have made complaints to the paper citing alternate dates.
Chief Executive of Murrumbidgee Local Health District Susan Weisser said the issue had arisen due to doctors taking unexpected leave at late notice.
“We work to have medical rosters covered, however, unexpected events can sometimes mean the rostered doctor is unavailable at short notice,” she said.
She denied it was due to a funding issue.
However, NSW Shadow Minister for Health Andrew McDonald blamed the situation on just that and a lack of political will to address systemic problems in ensuring the availability of doctors in rural areas.
“The shortage of on-call doctors for Young can be solved with a mixture of political will and funding,” he said. “Locums (a temporary doctor) cost a lot, so they are probably trying to do it on the cheap.”
Between 8am and 6pm Monday to Sunday either a rotating doctor from town or a locum is meant to be on duty at the Young District Hospital.
After hours, on-call doctors attend the hospital for medical emergencies.
When doctors aren’t available at the hospital, nurses trained in emergency care are required to perform increased duties for which they receive no extra remuneration.
They assess patients and discuss appropriate care arrangements with doctors at the Wagga Wagga Base Hospital.
Ms Weisser said in these cases where patients required further care, they were transferred to either Wagga Wagga Base Hospital or Canberra Hospital.
Although she maintains this was in line with routine MLHD practice, The Witness understands the additional transfers of patients to other hospitals is putting pressure on the other hospitals and also the NSW Ambulance service.
The Witness understands this issue is not confined to Young with other small hospitals in the area, including Harden, suffering from the same problem.
Mr McDonald said in the past there had been a doctor shortage but an “explosion” in medical schools had meant there was now enough to meet demand.
He suggested setting up, or increasing, rotations of junior doctors from Canberra and giving Young school students more opportunities to become doctors.
He said many medical graduates were keen to work in rural areas, if they had the appropriate professional support provided.
“To ensure safe patient care you need to have enough doctors to staff an on call roster,” he said. “Increasing the number of junior doctors reduces the on-call burden.”
