Flinders Medical Centre would struggle under Noarlunga downgrade: former health boss

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A former head of the Noarlunga Hospital emergency department in Adelaide’s south says he fears a downgrading of services there will lead to chronic overcrowding of nearby Flinders Medical Centre.

Lynton Stacey retired last year but said he had concerns about the South Australian Government’s new plan to overhaul the health system.

The proposal includes scaling back emergency departments at the Queen Elizabeth, Noarlunga and Modbury Hospitals in favour of non-critical care.

Dr Stacey said any downgrade of Noarlunga services would only increase pressure on Flinders.

“There may be something like up to 7,000 additional ambulances attending Flinders per year and ramping is currently occurring at Flinders. I can only see that getting worse,” he said.

He said people in Adelaide’s south were likely to get poorer health services if the Government proceeded with its plans.

Opposition Leader Steven Marshall said local clinicians had warned him Flinders could expect to see more than 20,000 more emergency department presentations annually, which would mean a 30 per cent increase.

Mr Marshall said Flinders would be unable to cope.

“Just to put it into perspective, the Flinders Medical Centre at the moment has the second-worst performance in the nation of major metropolitan hospitals. The worst is the Royal Adelaide Hospital,” he said.

“The Noarlunga Hospital emergency department has the best clearance rate of any hospital in South Australia and that’s the one that’s going to close.

“[If changes proceed] we’re going to concentrate all of that additional volume up to Flinders, who (sic) are massively struggling at the moment.”

Mr Marshall said State Health Minister Jack Snelling needed to release his modelling of patient flows and plans to upgrade the Flinders emergency department.

“The Minister has been out there saying that we struggled last year because we had a flu epidemic – that’s just not true,” he said.

“There’s ramping there at the moment, we’re not in the middle of a flu epidemic [a cause of heavy winter demand], he’s running out of excuses.”

Snelling said Flinders would cope

Mr Snelling said he was confident Flinders Medical Centre would cope with more patients if the Noarlunga Hospital changes proceeded.

The Minister said Flinders could expect to see only a small increase in patients and there would be no change to arrangements for most patients using Noarlunga Hospital.

“[For] 90 per cent of all presentations at the Noarlunga emergency department at the moment nothing will change,” he said.

“They will continue to go to the Noarlunga emergency department and they will be seen quicker and more effectively than they will under the current arrangements.

“Of the presentations to the Noarlunga emergency department, only 13 per cent are admitted to hospital so 87 per cent of all of the presentations … do not need to be admitted to hospital. They’re treated and they’re discharged.”

Mr Snelling said Flinders already dealt with some of Noarlunga’s workload.

“Of the 13 per cent who are admitted to hospital, over half are not admitted to the Noarlunga Hospital, they’re admitted to the Flinders Medical Centre,” he said.

Mr Snelling said Dr Stacey had predicted about six more ambulances per day would have to go to Flinders if the health system changes were implemented.

“I am very confident that Flinders Medical Centre is going to be able to deal with those six extra ambulances per day, [but] that’s not to say that we still don’t have a lot of work to do,” he said.

“We need to make sure that patients are flowing better through the Flinders Medical Centre, through all of our emergency departments and will be done and that is what we are addressing in these reforms.”