THE NEW Maitland Hospital could be used as a COVID-only care hub to alleviate pressure on local healthcare services in the community, a local doctor has suggested.
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This week Australian Community Media, who owns the Maitland Mercury, have been sharing the voices of healthcare workers and patients who have suffered at the hands of our regional healthcare system and asking if the system will cope with the easing of COVID restrictions and a potential influx of cases.
It comes on the back of a Parliamentary Inquiry into the health outcomes and access to health and hospital services in rural, regional and remote New South Wales established in September, 2020.
So The Mercury put the question to well-known local doctor Craig Richards on whether our regional healthcare and hospital services could handle a potential influx of COVID cases when NSW eases restrictions.
But the Lorn Surgery general practitioner said it was a "complicated" issue.
"It comes down to two factors. What we are seeing already is that we are having to shutdown the normal functions of hospitals to cater for the increasing number of COVID cases in Sydney," Dr Richards said.
"So that alone is a problem. It's not causing problems in COVID care but it's going to have flow on affects in terms of the quality of care and adverse outcomes for people suffering from other conditions. We've always been aware that is one of the great risks of COVID.
"It's not just the direct deaths from COVID but the indirect problems that it causes for patients with non-COVID conditions who aren't able to access care adequately.
"One of the potential advantages, we have here in Maitland is new hospital laying empty which could be staffed to provide COVID only care and allow the other local hospitals to continue to perform their already essential functions in non-COVID care. The crunch point is how many Intensive Care beds can we provide and safely staff, because staffing is the major issue not ventilators.
"We have fewer ICU beds in regional centres compared to Sydney so it's always more difficult to get an ICU bed locally than in Sydney.
"And if Sydney have already filled all their beds, we can't use them as overflow capacity so we are going to have to cope locally and that grading gets worse the further you go into remote areas in the regions."
Dr Richards added the State Government first needs to prioritise vaccine accessibility into the regions, including Maitland, before it brings NSW out of lockdown.
He said Maitland's double vaccination rate was a "a bit behind" the state.
"We can't do much about that without an increase in vaccine supply," Dr Richards said.
"The State Government hasn't really made much effort and they aren't interested in transferring doses.
"The government is setting these reopening timetables based on arbitrary vaccination targets rather than digging in and providing the support financially that the community needs to hold out for another month or two until everyone who wants to be vaccinated has had the opportunity to do so."
On Thursday, Maitland recorded two new COVID cases up to 8pm on Wednesday and Hunter New England Health district recorded 41.