Welcome to Day 45 of the Mersey Community Hospital ED shutdown.
Thank you for sharing this far and wide, we have passed 1000 signatures!
For those of you who are not aware: every time this petition receives a signature a letter outlining our concerns is emailed to the Prime minister, Premier, Health minister, Shadow health minister and mayor Freshney.
The premier and health minister have received in excess of 1000 such emails from this petition over the last 3 weeks!
Since the last update we have had some interesting news!!! The health minister has announced that the Mersey ED will reopen on 31st May (Examiner 14 May 2020).
Thank heavens!!! Things are back to normal!!!
But wait a minute. Hold your horses, don't get too excited...
Operating hours will be limited to between 8 am and 10 pm.
Imagine this:
You eat a late dinner, settle in for a nice night but start feeling a twinge in your chest around 9 pm. You think its just reflux but it keeps getting slowly worse. By 10 pm you decide to play it safe and roll up to the newly opened MCH ED only to find... it's closed. Off to Burnie or Launceston with you, prepare for a long night...
The health minister has stated "I am committed to having that ED operating 24/7, however that needs to be taken on clinical advice" (Examiner 14 May 2020). Surely this is the reassurance we have been waiting for, but somehow I will have to believe it to see it.
There is an old saying:
"Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it". In this case the past is actually not so long ago.
Remember in 2015 when the government was trying to:
- Rip out the high dependency unit (HDU).
- Destroy maternity services and force mothers to risk a trip to Burnie to deliver.
- Downgrade Emergency and reduce operating hours.
So lets see how they went in their efforts:
- HDU is gone.
- Maternity is gone.
- Emergency currently gone. Possibly will return to reduced operating hours 31 May.
I am reminded of another old saying: "Never waste a crisis".
So I encourage everyone to read this prescient 2015 Open Letter from Steve Martin to the former health minister. See how much we have lost already.
Do not be satisfied until our ED is returned to 24/7 operation and action is taken to employ PERMANENT staff to ensure this disaster does not happen again.
Demand an open and transparent audit to show exactly how the federal funding granted to the MCH has been spent thus far.
Demand a clear plan as to how it will be spent moving forward in the best interests of our hospital and the community it serves.
Stay Safe and well (especially after 10 pm from 31 May!),
Warm Regards,
Tasmanian Citizen.