Member for Maitland Jenny Aitchison has slammed the NSW Government for failing to address the health crisis which is gripping Maitland Hospital, causing one in four patients to leave the Emergency Department prior to receiving treatment.
Ms Aitchison said the Premier’s responses to questions in the NSW Parliament today showed he has no plans to fix the crisis and that he is only interested in blaming patients for their woes.
Early on in question time, the Health Minister interjected during one of the Premier’s responses that a patient “should have just seen a GP.” The patient from Campbelltown Hospital (who was in the Speakers Gallery during question time) had been directed to attend the Emergency Department if their symptoms worsened.
Ms Aitchison asked about an elderly patient who had waited over 100 hours on an Emergency Department trolley at Maitland Hospital, and was only admitted after they had deteriorated to such a level that they required a bed in the Intensive Care Unit.
The Premier refused to admit there was a staffing crisis and instead took the opportunity to boast about new hospital buildings. You can watch the footage here – https://we.tl/t-ESts8re68e
Ms Aitchison tried to get the Premier to answer the question a number of times, calling on the Government to address the staffing shortages, and interjecting “You don’t need a GP if you end up in ICU.”
Quotes from the Member for Maitland, Jenny Aitchison MP
“It’s outrageous that the Liberal National Government’s solution to fixing our Emergency Department crisis is for people with serious medical emergencies to go to their GP instead of seeking urgent medical treatment at their local hospital.”
“A quality health system is not about new bricks and mortar, it’s about supporting the people in it - the patients and our dedicated, hardworking and burnt-out health staff.”
“Ask anyone who has been to Maitland hospital recently, and they will tell you that our health staff are doing a fantastic job in impossible circumstances. We desperately need more staff across the entire hospital.”
“Tragically, we are seeing more and more patients leaving the emergency department without getting treatment. When they inevitably come back, their health issues are even more urgent.”
“It’s only a matter of time before someone dies as a result of the Government’s failure to properly staff the hospital.”
“The Liberal National Government has failed to adequately invest in staffing our state’s hospitals so now patients are forced to wait in the back of an ambulance or in overcrowded emergency departments for excessively long periods of time, or worse, not get treated at all because of long delays.”
