’Poor long-term’ plan

Union says private upgrade is not a fix

QUEENSLAND’S public service union has welcomed news of a multimillion-dollar upgrade to Cairns Private Hospital, but warns the region still urgently needs more resources for public health.

Together Queensland senior vice-president and Cairns Hospital anaesthetist Dr Sandy Donald said the $18m expansion to Cairns Private Hospital would be “good news for patients across the Far North”. But he said while the upgrades might help ease surgery wait times for some, it was not a lasting fix.

“While outsourcing of procedures for public patients can help reduce waiting lists, Together regards it as generally a poor long-term solution,” Dr Donald said, explaining outsourced surgeries ultimately meant increased costs to the public system.

“Building up the capacity of the public hospital means there’s a more sustainable workforce for emergencies and after-hours work.

“This expansion in no way reduces the urgent need for a major expansion of the public hospital, including beds, staff and operating capacity.”

Cairns Private Hospital chief executive Ben Tooth said new surgical theatre rooms which are set to be operational from mid-2024 would help draw more clinicians to Cairns to meet the growing demand for a broad range of surgeries.

“To recruit clinicians to a regional area, it is important to have high-quality health facilities,” Mr Tooth said.

“Ramsay’s additional $18m investment into Cairns Private Hospital will help with that.

“We will certainly see more medical recruitment on the back of this investment.”

Cairns Private Hospital has recently been hampered by a shortage of obstetric and paediatric specialists, but Mr Tooth said it would welcome new recruits into those areas soon.

“We have one additional obstetrician in the pipeline at this stage,” he said.

“We do have one full-time paediatrician joining us in the new year.

“I’m optimistic we can continue our maternity service and we will continue to recruit medical staff to support it.”

Cairns Private Hospital has traditionally accepted surgical overflow from Cairns Base Hospital, which Mr Tooth said would continue after the hospital’s upgrade.

“It will enable additional capacity to assist the Cairns Public Hospital – we’ve always had a good relationship with Cairns Hospital and assisted them with outsourced surgery,” he said.

“While we’re close to capacity now … having a theatre coming online in 18 months’ time should be the right time to add additional capacity …” he said.

“We’ve also purchased the land adjacent to the hospital … we still have plans to expand the hospital further onto that land into the future.”