Public support funding for Warranmbool Base Hospital upgrades

The 2018 election survey conducted by The Standard asked residents if public hospitals received enough funding to deliver the right level of care to the community.

More than three quarters of people said no, with others calling on the state government to fund the multi-million dollar redevelopment of the Warrnambool hospital.

Perioperative manager Tony Kelly and emergency director Joanne Brown say the demands for care has hugely increased over the past five years and the hospital is simply too small.

“There’s always a space issue,” Dr Brown said.

“If we had a bigger emergency department we could see more people and see them more quickly.

“If we had a bigger hospital we could admit people more easily and it would enhance people’s journey through.”

Mr Kelly said there was currently pressures with emergency surgeries.

“If we are able to expand we can do more clinical specialties so people don’t have to travel to Melbourne,” he said. “But, that also increases the demand on what we can actually do here.” 

Dr Brown said the hospital had taken a bigger role in the region when it came to providing healthcare.

“People are happy to come to Warrnambool where previously they might have gone to Melbourne or Geelong,” she said.

“They come here for specialised care where previously they may not have been able to do that. That puts a lot of pressure on the hospital as those people come from a distance and so you have to make sure they are really well to get home.

“That can create some conflict of demands with different types of patients, especially with surgery.” 

Anyone needing emergency plastic surgery on the west side of Geelong would come to Warrnambool.

“Medical care doesn’t work in compartments or silos,” Dr Brown said.

“It has to be funded altogether and things like the new cancer centre, which is wonderful, but then that creates more work for the acute hospital as there is more people being treated here, more people getting sick on the chemotherapy and more people needing biopsies. There might be a big public outpouring of generosity to build a cancer centre and to start cancer treatment but that has impacts on the less sexy parts of the hospital.” 

Mr Kelly said the last major upgrade at the hospital was in 1997.

Dr Brown said departments made smaller changes often, but said it didn’t change the fact that the whole hospital was too small.