With Calvary Health and the state government expected to finalise what services it plans to offer at a proposed co-located private hospital in Launceston next month, healthcare stakeholders are concerned the services to come may not have the scope required to alleviate pressure on the health sector or meet community expectations.
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In December last year, a StLukesHealth member survey identified six services the public felt were a priority for the co-located hospital, opposite the Launceston General Hospital, to provide.
From most critical to least, the survey found chronic pain was ranked highest, followed by acute hospital and psychiatric services, while palliative care, elective surgery and a private emergency department were also considered essential.
Australian Medical Association Northern Tasmania chairman Dr Glenn Richardson said palliative care and elective surgery were expected to be a high priority for Calvary. However, Dr Richardson said while the AMA was supportive of the co-located hospital, they wanted to be assured that the state government was working with Calvary to ensure the services provided would complement the LGH to alleviate pressures on the public system.
Tasmanian Health Minister Jeremy Rockliff said the new co-located hospital in Frankland Street would enable better health services and boost attraction and retention of health professionals, including specialists to the community.
He said the government was working with Calvary to ensure the project took into account the needs of public and private patients and staff, and would deliver a complementary mix of services to the LGH.
Mr Rockliff confirmed the Calvary proposal included palliative care, mental health, post-natal services and elective surgery, and said full details of the services to be provided would be discussed over the next month.
Newstead Medical Centre GP and partner Dr Toby Gardner said it was unlikely the co-location hospital, proposed in 2017, would be able to provide all the services with staff shortages a key issue.
"The big thing they're going to struggle with is staffing these services. It's a constant issue in the North," he said.
"We have no effective chronic pain service that's publicly funded and we don't have any pain physicians in the North.
"As well as doctors, you need psychologists, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, who all work just in pain to provide that service. So trying to amass that group of clinicians is really difficult."
Dr Gardner said while it was reasonable to assume that Calvary could recruit the right staff to run acute hospital services, palliative care and elective surgery units, he said the chances of staffing a chronic pain or psychiatric unit was less likely.
Cardiologist Dr Geoffrey Evans has worked and trained in other co-located hospitals and is one of several doctors who have provided feedback on the Calvary proposal.
He said his understanding was that chronic pain and acute services had not been prioritised as part of the hospital's services.
"There was no plan specifically about that in the proposal that I've seen," he said.
Dr Evans said any co-located hospital should offer a full breadth of services that was complimentary to the needs of the Launceston General Hospital and would benefit the whole community.
"If we don't have those complementary services then it would be very disappointing and tt would be a huge missed opportunity going forward," he said.
StLukesHealth chief executive Paul Lupo said Calvary and the government have been provided with the results of their members' survey and StLukes had conveyed their expectations for services they believed the co-location should provide.
He said based on meetings with both Calvary and the state government, palliative care, elective surgery and mental health services were expected to be included, but confirmed that discussions were ongoing and the provision of services would depend on available space at the facility.
Mr Lupo said he wanted to ensure the co-location would meet the needs of the community, while having the capacity to change and grow with the needs of the population.
"If you're building a new hospital you want to build some capacity into it so that it not only meets the current needs of the community, but the needs that we foresee," he said.
"Once you build that hospital it's there for a period of time, so you want to ensure that it's got sufficient scale, not just to meet today's demand but the demand that we can foresee."
A Department of Health spokeswoman confirmed the future needs for expansion of services at the Launceston General Hospital had been identified in the recent LGH Masterplan.
She said future development opportunities identified in the masterplan included a new purpose-built mental health facility on the Anne O'Byrne site.
Clifford Craig Foundation chief executive Peter Milne said the development would need to provide better services than the community currently had access to, and that would be in regards to synergies and the integration of services.
Mr Milne said if the new co-located hospital couldn't deliver better services for the region, he would be disappointed and concerned.
More detail is expected to be released by the end of November.
Andrew Chounding
An experienced multi-platform journalist focusing on the issues that impact health in Tasmania. With a background in social research and public policy, health reporting for Andrew is about ensuring the best health outcomes for the Northern Tasmanian community. Contact Andrew at: andrew.chounding@examiner.com.au or 0437 358 262
An experienced multi-platform journalist focusing on the issues that impact health in Tasmania. With a background in social research and public policy, health reporting for Andrew is about ensuring the best health outcomes for the Northern Tasmanian community. Contact Andrew at: andrew.chounding@examiner.com.au or 0437 358 262
