By Ann Marie Angebrandt
VICTORIAN doctors and the State Opposition say the Williamstown Hospital is in crisis, and are urging the Government to do something about it.
The Opposition health spokeswoman, Helen Shardey, said hospital staff were complaining that a drastic decline in services at the Williamstown Hospital was like “death by a thousand cuts.”
Obstetrics, paediatrics, maternity, ear, nose and throat, and asthma services are among those that have been slashed at the Railway Cres facility in recent years.
Gynaecologists were told their services would be shifted to Sunshine Hospital in the next few months.
A Western Hospital spokesman said the closure of the gynaecology unit was required to improve “equity of access” for all people in the West.
But Ms Shardey said the justification was “nonsense” because none of the doctors planned to move.
“Unless they expect to find a new team of gynaecologists, I don’t know how the services will continue.”
The Victorian president of the Australian Medical Association, Dr Doug Travis, said problems had been festering at the Williamstown Hospital for months.
“The Government needs to offer certainty to this hospital, and tell it – and tell the community – exactly what are the plans for Williamstown Hospital,” he said.
He said morale was suffering because of uncertainty hanging over the hospital’s future.
“Any information about what will happen to this hospital should be made public now,” he said.
“Not knowing really eats away at any institution.”
Ms Shardey said some staff feared that Williamstown Hospital was being transformed from a community hospital with a broad range of services into a geriatric and palliative care facility.
Recently, the hospital appointed a geriatrician as its senior medical physician after the retirement of general practitioner, Hugo Standish.
A Government spokesman said Ms Shardey was “misleading the people of western Melbourne with her spurious claims”.
He said the Williamstown Hospital, Melbourne’s oldest suburban hospital, treated 2866 elective surgery patients in the six months to the end of last December, up by 343 patients on the previous six months.
