Children’s lives could be at risk if the State Government goes ahead with a plan to transfer sick children from the Modbury Hospital to the Lyell McEwin, the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons has warned.
The Government has flagged the potential closure of Modbury Hospital’s paediatric ward amid outcry from the area’s families.
RACS chair Peter Subramaniam told InDaily he was not concerned about the closure of the paediatric ward, but the potentially lethal lengthy transfer time between hospitals that would mean “children are put at risk”.
Under the SA Health plan, children would be treated in emergency services at Modbury and transferred to the Lyell McEwin Hospital if an overnight stay is needed.
The surgeons argue that a second transfer would then be needed – to the Women’s and Children’s Hospital – for any patients requiring acute surgical care.
“Children’s lives are at risk if the plan is to transfer acute paediatric cases form a non-specialist centre to another non-specialist centre,” Subramaniam said.
“There is a coronial inquest on two paediatric deaths in NSW which occurred in transfer, and we don’t want that to happen in SA.”
He said it might take some time under observation for doctors to realise specialist surgical care was needed and that children must be transferred to the point of service immediately.
“The question the department needs to answer is why would you transfer children, especially sick children, to the Lyell McEwin?”
He said if children presented to Modbury for an acute paediatric surgical problem, were observed there for four hours and were subsequently transferred to Lyell McEwin, his “concern is that there is no paediatric surgical service at the Lyell McEwin, and the adult surgeons are not able to provide paediatric surgical services”.
“Then, [the patients] would get transferred to Women’s and Children’s Hospital and that could mean a delay of more than four hours and given the delay, this can potentially result in high risk of adverse outcome.”
Subramaniam has put his concerns to the Central Northern Adelaide Health Service CEO Margot Mains as well as SA Health chief David Swan but has yet to receive a satisfactory response.
The Government has said the ward should be closed as it was under-utilised.
The Northern Adelaide Local Healthcare Network refused to answer to InDaily’s questions, instead responding only that consultation had closed on July 30 and submissions were being reviewed.
Parents of children using the Modbury Hospital service and the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (SA) Union have called for the service to remain open.
Subramaniam said the Lyell McEwin had last year closed its paediatric day surgery service.
“On the one hand the Government is speaking about establishing a robust paediatric service in Lyell McEwin and on the other, they have decimated one that was being provided for 22 years,” he said.
Subramaniam said he hoped a paediatric service would be established at the Lyell McEwin, but that he had not seen any moves to make that happen.
“To have a paediatric service you have to have a registrar, you need paediatric surgeon and you need elective list, paediatric surgical nurses, and none of that exists.”
