When local councillor Geoff Frost fronted at Yass Hospital with chest pains the last thing he wanted to hear was that the closest doctor was an hour away.
Although he didn't know it at the time, Cr Frost was having a heart attack as he walked through the doors of the hospital at 10pm on Wednesday July 21. It was about this time he was informed by the nurses that the facility was without medical officer coverage. Greater Southern Area Health (GSAHS) has admitted to the Tribune the emergency department at Yass Hospital has been left without a doctor on seven occasions since January.
A local medical officer who spoke to the Tribune on the condition of anonymity last month confirmed the shortage has been an issue since the beginning of the year.
The hospital was without a doctor on at least two occasions: last Wednesday when Cr Frost was admitted, and again on Sunday. Despite attempts to find a locum, GSAHS was unable to secure the services of a doctor to cover these shifts, according to Acting Director of Clinical Operations, Susan Weisser.
"There is a well-recognised shortage of doctors across Australia," she told the Tribune in a media statement. "We continue to work hard to ensure we have medical cover in the Yass Hospital emergency department."
Ms Weisser said larger hospitals are also under pressure to provide medical coverage in their emergency departments.
Cr Frost, who is now at home recuperating, is full of praise and admiration for the "brilliant" local nursing staff and paramedics, who are doing the best they can under trying conditions, but says the pressure they are continually put under is deplorable.
The nurse manager at Yass Hospital was called shortly after Cr Frost arrived with what he thought were "fairly mild" pains in his chest. He was hooked up to a machine for an electrocardiogram (ECG) and all the relevant tests were done. Goulburn Hospital was notified as the first port of call but the doctor there was tied up with a patient who had presented with similar symptoms, Cr Frost says.
"The nurses were really good. They did all the right tests and gave all my information to Goulburn. They were very skilled in being able to pick up the problem and they were right."
The ambulance was called and Cr Frost was conveyed to Calvary Hospital because there was no room at Canberra Hospital (the pressure on hospitals across the border has also been well documented in the past few weeks).
More tests were done at Calvary before Cr Frost was eventually transferred to Canberra Hospital where he was seen by a cardiologist. He was wheeled into surgery the following morning. Cr Frost has been told to take it easy for a few weeks. He says he is feeling fine physically, but the ordeal has given him "one hell of a scare".
When asked if an already stressful situation was made worse by the fact he could not be seen by a doctor at his local hospital, Cr Frost answered matter-of-factly: "Yes and no."
"Yes and no, because there was really nothing I could do about it at the time. The nurses were excellent and they did what they had to do but they were left in a funny state of limbo. I couldn't be admitted without a doctor examining me and I couldn't leave without a doctor examining me. It puts the nurses in a very difficult situation...and it puts pressure on other hospitals too.
"I don't know what we can do about it to be honest but as a community we need to stick up for ourselves and get the best possible facilities and services in our hospital," Cr Frost concluded.
Member for Burrinjuck, Katrina Hodgkinson, says the continuing periods where doctors are not available in emergency departments across the region is totally unacceptable.
"By far the worst affected hospital in the region is Grenfell which has been without a
full-time VMO [Visiting Medical Officer] or emergency department doctor for at least nine months," she said.
"Other hospitals including Yass, Boorowa, Young and Queanbeyan have also been without emergency department doctors sometimes for up to two weeks at a time."
Ms Hodgkinson said regional centres deserve the same access to public health facilities as enjoyed by people living in metropolitan areas.
A spokesperson for the Minister for Health, Carmel Tebbutt, says attracting and retaining professionals in rural areas is tough.
"The government is working hard to increase the recruitment and retention of doctors, nurses, allied health professionals and dentists across NSW, particularly in rural and regional areas," the spokesperson said.
"Through Caring Together: The Health Action Plan for NSW, the government is investing a total of $42 million over four years to increase the supply of skilled doctors to outer metropolitan and rural areas.
"To further bolster the workforce, more than 3500 positions for junior medical officers in NSW has recently been advertised."
Local doctor Ray Burn regularly pens his frustrations in his weekly column, Towards Health. On June 16 he brought the Trib's attention to the issue.
"It's not enough for the Area Health Service to blandly announce their failure by stating the obvious and advising staff to ring a doctor at Goulburn Hospital.
"For heavens sake, there are qualified doctors in administrative posts in the Area Health Service - it's not too much to ask that one of these takes a day to actually touch a patient."
GSAHS says it has a clear critical care pathway for the management of all emergency presentations at Yass Hospital when a doctor is not available based on NSW Health guidelines. This includes notifying the ambulance service and surrounding district hospitals, if patients require transfer to another facility for further treatment.
"Yass residents can be assured they will be assessed and treated by highly qualified registered nurses in the emergency department who have been trained in front line emergency care," Ms Weisser said.
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