FIGHTING FOR HEALTH INVESTMENT
It is no secret that the largest hospital servicing my electorate, Nepean Hospital, is facing huge pressures. It
recently secured the unfortunate distinction of being the most under-pressure hospital in the state.
We all know an upgrade is urgently needed. The people bearing the brunt of the breaking point that this hospital has reached are the patients and staff, many of whom live in the Blue Mountains and Hawkesbury and work long hours to improve people's health. Ten per cent of patients wait almost 11 hours in the emergency department.
There is a wait of 315 days for elective surgery, 285 days for knee replacements, 274 days for total hip replacements and nine days short of a year to get your tonsils out. You are lucky if you have a hernia, because the wait is only 248 days.
Many of us think that elective means that it's not so necessary, but if you're waiting for a cataract operation
and can't drive it has a massive impact on your life. If you're waiting for a new hip or knee, the consequences of
coping with pain for nine or 10 months takes its toll on your work, life and family.
By contrast, the government says people at Blue Mountains District ANZAC Memorial Hospital are receiving
their elective surgery within the clinically recommended time frame. But there are plenty of things that don't
happen at Blue Mountains Hospital at Katoomba. That's because there is no MRI machine.
The public MRI machine at Nepean Hospital is working around the clock. It's needed to investigate or diagnose soft tissue conditions, so it's used for dementia and stroke patients, for sports injuries, dodgy knees, cancer patients and
spinal injuries.
Right now patients' treatment is delayed while waiting for an MRI, and doctors in Katoomba have the inefficiency
of having patients travelling up to an hour to Nepean for a diagnostic scan, and that assumes that patients will
even come back to Katoomba and not just stay at Nepean, placing further pressure on beds. The sensible decision
will be to have an MRI machine in Katoomba Hospital.
Doctors tell me it would speed up treatment of patients.
It would certainly spare many the two-hour return journey and help reduce pressure on Nepean's MRI, meaning
a better service for everyone in the west. Labor knows the impact the shortage of MRI machines is having. We have promised 10 new machines for public hospitals and 20 all up. Patients and medical experts in the Blue
Mountains have said to me loud an
