The Launceston General Hospital’s downgrade from the Royal Australian College of Physicians recently highlights the ongoing problems the hospital is facing with accreditation and professional standards.
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The downgrade by the Royal Australian College of Physicians means student doctors will no longer be able to complete their full training at the LGH. Many of those trainee doctors would have completed their three years of basic training at the LGH, before transferring to bigger hospitals to train in their sub-speciality. Now they will only be able to complete two years of their basic training before moving on. This is not necessarily a disaster for the LGH, but it certainly puts an extra step in a student physician’s study plan. It also means that local students of medicine will have to leave Launceston sooner.
There’s the bigger question of why has the college downgraded the LGH at this point. Then the further question of whether we need to prepare for other colleges, like the Royal Australian College of Surgeons, to follow suit? This possibility could mean ramifications for the Launceston community could be very dire indeed. There have been concerns for quite some time that the LGH doesn’t have the standards required to continue to be an accredited surgical training centre. The Royal Australian College of Surgeons has been asking the LGH to remedy some unacceptable deficiencies to remain accredited.
The most recently raised issue has been short staffing in the radiology department, which directly cuts capacity to deliver training. This was resolved by privatising that department. While this solution is better than closure, it can lead to balancing the books becoming more important than service delivery. Radiology is one hospital department that creates revenue that can be put into other areas of the hospital. Privatisation of radiology services occurred because of a lack of government investment in the public service, but it will inevitably lead to even more demand on the public purse. If accreditation from the Royal Australian College of Surgeons had been suspended due to deficiencies it would be a disaster for Northern Tasmanian patients.
There are only a few surgeons from each speciality in the Launceston area and they have a heavy on-call roster. Surgeons depend on the ability of trainees to be able to assist in performing surgeries. If there were no accredited surgical trainees the burden of the surgical list would be as such that the LGH would need to start advertising globally to fill the void.
This would be time consuming and destabilising and there’s no guarantee surgeons would move to Launceston. Unfortunately, this isn’t a surprise. Previous reviews raised a number of threats to the LGH’s accreditation, which required attention in order for the LGH to remain a teaching hospital. It’s so important we retain the teaching capacity, and the resources it offers to the community, at the LGH. It’s disingenuous of the Health Minister Michael Ferguson to express his ‘disappointment’ at the downgrading, when it’s his understaffing and under resourcing that have led to it occurring.
It’s reasonable for Northern Tasmanians to expect waiting lists for elective surgeries and wait times to be seen in the Emergency Department to improve. They need to be reassured services at the hospital won’t decline further, and it’s the role of government – and the Launceston-based Health Minister – to provide that reassurance.
Andrea Dawkins MP, Greens Member for Bass