WYNDHAM’S Mayor said she was “saddened and shocked” by news that Werribee Mercy Hospital would be closing beds.
The municipality’s only public hospital has been forced to close beds and special care nursery cots and delay elective surgery numbers in a bid to deal with drastic funding cuts.
Mercy Public Hospitals Executive Director, Linda Mellors, wrote to all her staff last week informing them of changes at the hospital that will be enforced in an effort to meet a $3 million funding cut required by 30 June 2013.
A statement from the hospital said the Mercy Health board and senior management had endorsed reducing 357 elective surgery cases across endoscopy, ear, nose and throat, urology, vascular, orthopaedic and general surgery, closing eight medical beds and four surgical beds and three special nursery cots.
At Mercy Hospital for Women 170 elective surgery cases will be reduced across general gynaecology, urogynaecology, endosurgery and reproductive medicine, and two special care nursery cots will be closed while beds will be reduced on the gynaecology ward and managed on demand.
Dr Mellors flagged that there were no planned changes to service delivery across birthing, oncology, mental health, dialysis, palliative care and emergency services.
She said that patients could expect longer stays in the emergency department as a result of the changes.
“Our priority is to redeploy our people wherever possible. We will ask people affected to consider taking annual leave, long service leave or leave without pay in the event they have no available leave entitlements,” Dr Mellors said.
“This is the most effective approach we can take to achieve the necessary rostering reductions while protecting as many jobs as possible.
“We will consult with those of our people directly affected by these changes, relevant industry organisations and our referral networks. We are continuing our negotiations with the Department of Health regarding the impact on services and our ability to achieve performance targets in Emergency Departments, surgery and other service areas.”
Wyndham Mayor Heather Marcus said she was disappointed to see Wyndham’s hospital suffering from funding cuts.
“I am totally shocked and saddened that this is happening in Wyndham,” Cr Marcus told Star.
“We are a growing city with a small medical system here and we cannot afford this in our community.”
Cr Marcus called on the Federal and State Governments to stop the damage being done to Wyndham.
“Absolutely they need to listen to the residents and the council and do something to help us,” she said.
“They can’t do this to our city.”
