Two current articles below

Little improvement at Queensland Health despite increased funding

Queensland public hospitals are continuing to report insufficient staff numbers, staff fatigue and reduced and restricted services, says leaked internal Queensland Health documents. The documents, dated July 21, not only identify current shortages being experienced in public hospitals, but predict these will continue into next year. In response to questions about likely future impact of current employment status and vacancies, hospital administrators have written "lack of physicians is compromising surgery; service unsustainable in current form; insufficient medical officers to support ongoing total services and sustain safe roster; and significant fatigue of core staff". Another question asking whether shortages of medical staff are anticipated in January 2007 finds that little improvement is expected.

At the beginning of the year, Premier Peter Beattie said he would quit his job by the end of the year if the crisis affecting the state's hospitals was not fixed. This pledge was later withdrawn by Mr Beattie, who in March declared his Government had "turned the corner" in its efforts and had "made very significant advances".

Health Minister Stephen Robertson said yesterday the figures, contained in minutes and attachments to Queensland Health's Central Area Medical Workforce Advisory Group, were "in line with what the Government has been saying publicly for months". "We continue to recruit aggressively, but we need more doctors as there are several vacancies that still exist. That is why the Premier and I led two separate overseas recruitment drives this year," Mr Robertson said. "Latest figures show there are 4863 doctors in our public health system - that is an increase of 311 on June 2005. "As our recruitment efforts progress, we continue to target the key medical vacancies that exist in our hospital such as emergency medicine, mental health, obstetrics and surgical specialties."

Deputy Coalition Leader and health spokesman Bruce Flegg said the documents were very significant and "remove any doubts that nothing has changed". "Mr Beattie has not fixed the system and continues to cover up the real position," Dr Flegg said. "There is a threat to services across the board because the Government has failed to reform the culture of Queensland Health. It is far too bureaucratic and there is enormously low morale."

Source

One victim of negligent Queensland Health regulators

Jack McDougall thought he was one of the lucky ones after federal Nationals MP De-Anne Kelly's claimed in Parliament that Mackay Base Hospital had allowed a surgeon to undertake operations he was not fit to perform. Mr McDougall, 45, was in pain for almost a year after about 10mm of mesh was left rubbing against his abdominal muscles.

Abdalla Khalafalla performed a double hernia operation on Mr McDougall on February 15 last year. Despite repeated post-op consultations with Dr Khalafalla, during which he was advised to "wait it out", Mr McDougall opted to pay for a private surgeon. "When they went in to do it they saw about 8 to 10mm of mesh was rubbing . . . so they nipped that, pulled the extra mesh out and I was as good as gold," he said. Mr McDougall said he considered himself lucky because his affliction was relatively minor. "Some of the other cases she (Ms Kelly) talked about sounded a lot more serious. It makes you wonder."

The Courier-Mail tried to contact Dr Khalafalla yesterday, but a Queensland Health spokeswoman said he was still "too upset" to speak publicly about the matter. But Craig Margetts, the district executive director of medical services, said the hospital had responded correctly to concerns raised by Dr Khalafalla's peers. Dr Margetts said the situation in Mackay was far removed from that of Jayant Patel in Bundaberg. "There are a number of differences (to the Patel case), the first and probably most important difference is that Dr Khalafalla himself has been very co-operative and has been working very strongly with us in terms of making sure that his range of practices are limited to very safe procedures," he said.

Dr Margetts said he was not aware of any problems with Dr Khalafalla's competence before he arrived in Mackay. Bundaberg Patients Support Group founder Beryl Crosby yesterday urged patients to come forward with their experiences at Mackay Base Hospital.

Source

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