27 May 2021
"It is foolish to think there is a quick fix for the public
health system. It has been broken for a very long time", writes Walkley
Award-winning journalist Colin James in The Advertiser.
The following was written by Colin James for The Advertiser.
I saw doctors and nurses run off their feet while I recovered from a life-threatening condition. They’re under enormous pressure but it isn’t their fault.
Any politician who says the public health system is not under enormous pressure is kidding themselves. Having just spent time in the Queen Elizabeth Hospital recovering from a burst appendix, I speak from first-hand experience.
During two pain-ridden ambulance trips, paramedics told me how people had died during their 14-hour shifts because of roster changes that had delayed their response times. Waiting twice in the QEH emergency department for attention, I watched nurses and young doctors who were run off their feet.
In the surgical ward, where I was later treated for severe peritonitis, nurses barely had time to take meal breaks because the ward was so understaffed. One worked an 18-hour shift while caring for me and several other patients recovering from surgery.
In my case, a life-threatening condition developed when pus from a burst appendix entered my abdominal cavity. Things got complicated when my right lung partially collapsed from pneumonia and my heart went into shock. In short, I was very, very sick.
Thankfully, due to excellent care provided by a team of specialists who prescribed powerful antibiotics, I recovered over a couple of weeks. Aiding the process were nurses who, as they went about their duties, were often treated poorly by patients.
It is those nurses who I wish to single out today – and commend. For it seems to me that nursing is a thankless task, particularly in our public health system. They are rarely praised for their valuable work.
Instead, they often appeared to me during my time at the QEH to be treated as general dogsbodies, tending to anything from involuntary bowel evacuations to the changing of dressings, showering geriatric men and administering pain relief.
Some patients behaved like they were staying in a hotel, rather than a hospital, ringing their buzzers like they were ordering room service. I had strong suspicions that my neighbour was not being completely truthful about his medical condition, treating the place as somewhere to escape home for a few days.
It is not the fault of the nursing staff at the QEH that it is regarded as the poor cousin of the metropolitan hospital system.
The operating theatres are at the end of long, dimly lit corridors littered with discarded furniture and medical equipment. The radiology department is so cramped that attendants struggle to push through patients in their beds.
Work is finally starting on a new building to house an emergency department, operating theatres, day-surgery suites, an intensive-care unit and general rehabilitation facilities.
While millions of dollars have been committed to this long-overdue project, basic necessities such as pillows remain in short supply.
I grabbed a plastic version from the emergency department on my first visit. During my second stay, I asked my partner to bring a better one from home.
Medical staff such as nurses, interns, registrars and consultants are working under relentless pressure across the state. It is time they were given a break by politicians and health bureaucrats, who come across as indifferent to their plight.
During the most recent public debate over redundancies being offered to nurses, Health Minister Stephen Wade argued the Auditor-General had found there were more frontline nurses now than when the Labor government was in power.
The nurses I spoke to during my time in the QEH said this was nonsense, saying their ward regularly was understaffed – hence some were working 13-hour shifts.
Morale during my time at the QEH was obviously poor and public iterations by politicians such as Mr Wade were not helping the staff feel better.
It is foolish to think there is a quick fix for the public health system. It has been broken for a very long time and will remain broken. As one of the most expensive items within any government’s budget, there always will be demands for cost savings.
These should not be at the expense of those who keep the system running, such as nurses, doctors and paramedics.
Our health system is at breaking point and we need our politicians to act now. Can you share your story so we can continue to put the pressure on the State Government to make our battered health care system a priority?
See how you can get involved through our Action for Health campaign now.
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