A South Australian doctor’s claims that the scaling back of cardiology services at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) will put heart attack patients at risk have been rejected.
QEH cardiology director Professor John Horowitz, in an op-ed article, said the downgrading of services at the Woodville South hospital under the State Government’s Transforming Health reforms would be a “waste of money on a grand scale”.
Services for heart attack patients at the QEH will be consolidated at the new Royal Adelaide Hospital (RAH).
In his article, published by the Sunday Mail, Professor Horowitz said when the new RAH opened it was proposed that all patients experiencing chest pain, who would currently be assessed and treated at QEH, would be taken to the new facility.
“This might involve ambulance redirection or secondary ambulance transfer from QEH,” he wrote.
He said this would lead to delays in care.
“In the case of patients with heart attacks (about 150 per year being treated at QEH at present), it will delay onset of specialist treatment by 15 to 30 minutes per case, meaning larger heart attacks and a greater chance of death,” he wrote.
However, Central Adelaide Local Health Network clinical director of medicine Chris Zeitz said the changes were about creating efficiencies and providing better care.
He said currently specialised staff were “routinely” on site at both centres during office hours and under the changes the RAH would have extended hours.
“We rely upon people being called in from home to actually treat those heart attacks,” Dr Zeitz said.
“By consolidating services at the new Royal Adelaide Hospital, what will happen is we will be able to have staff more routinely present for longer periods of time during the periods when patients with heart attacks actually present.”
He said the RAH treated higher volumes of cardiac patients.
Dr Zeitz said “a vast majority” of heart attack patients came to hospital by ambulance and paramedics called in advance to alert the hospital they had a patient.
He said the distance between the QEH and the new RAH would be less than 10 minutes in normal traffic conditions and much less for an ambulance.