By JESSE GRAHAM
THE culmination of a three-year campaign was presented to almost 100 residents last night, with the Save Healesville Hospital Action Group (SHHAG) presenting its community-funded report.
On Thursday, 10 December, SHHAG held a meeting at Healesville’s Memo Hall, to present what they had dubbed The Options Paper – a consultant’s report on the services at the hospital.
For 90 minutes, SHHAG members Bruce Argyle, Jane Judd and Gayle Slater presented information from the document to the 98 attendees, along with chair Fiona McAllister and Health Outcomes International director, consultant Andrew Alderdice.
Ms McAllister said the meeting was held on the third anniversary of a community meeting which saw 300 people pack into the hall, with the action group forming as a result.
“As you’ll see tonight, sadly, our journey’s not over,” she said.
Mr Alderdice said the paper outlined a 13 per cent decline in admissions at the hospital between the 2009-’10 and 2013-’14 financial years, while the rates of residents from the Yarra Valley and surrounds visiting other hospitals in Victoria had increased.
The report cites a “significant” decline in women visiting the hospital, due to reductions in gynaecological, obstetric and paediatric services at the hospital, as well as ending birthing in 2012.
The speech and the paper drew attention to a number of procedures that Yarra Valley residents underwent – such as skin, tissue and breast procedures, eye disorders, ear, nose, mouth and throat – but which were either not offered or had seen a decline in Healesville.
Ms Judd said that surgical, ear, nose and throat, urological, gynaecological, ophthalmological, orthopaedic and plastic surgery specialists currently drove past Healesville to service Alexandra and Seymour, and suggested that a redeveloped surgical theatre at the Healesville Hospital could accommodate some of these services.
Responding to the Victorian Government’s Health 2040 Discussion Paper, which said services should follow the philosophy of “right care, right time, right place,” Mr Alderdice said services should be linked with community need.
He said that community responses to SHHAG’s community surveys saw 92 per cent of respondents preferring to have an operation or give birth in Healesville, rather than travelling for the services.
The paper also indicated that travel times to the nearest hospitals – Angliss, Maroondah and Box Hill – spanned 46-59 minutes on average.
“A summary of what the community is saying is, ‘If you provide an appropriate range of services in Healesville, we would use them as opposed to travel’,” Mr Alderdice said.
In the paper’s third section, The Future, it said the hospital, whether it was run through Eastern Health or as a Small Rural Health Service (SRHS), should offer low-complexity surgery and medicine, and “an appropriate urgent care service”.
At the end of the meeting, a motion was put forward, demanding a written commitment from Eastern Health by 31 March to expand services delivered at the hospital in line with the paper, or else the community would then turn to the Victorian Government to make the case of shifting the hospital to a Small Rural Health Service.
After debate about wording of the motion, the attendees unanimously voted to give their in-principle support.
The Mail contacted Eastern Health with questions following the meeting, including whether services had been narrowed at the hospital in recent years, whether the redeveloped hospital could accommodate more specialist procedures and 24-hour urgent care, whether private midwives could access the provisional birthing suite and how the placement of the birthing suite was decided.
However, Eastern Health’s chief of clinical and site operations in Yarra Ranges Lisa Lynch said the organisation was “not in a position to comment”, as it had yet to formally receive the report.
“We look forward to receiving the report, taking the time to review it properly and discussing it with the Save Healesville Hospital Action Group,” she said.
“In the meantime, we remain confident that the redeveloped hospital and community health centre will deliver a range of services that meet the current and future needs of the Healesville and Yarra Ranges communities.”
For the full document, visit bit.ly/1Nf8sUc or Facebook.com/SaveHealesvilleHospital.
