Peak medical bodies have hit out at the State Government saying simultaneous cuts to beds and staff at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital and paediatric services at Modbury Hospital could create more problems than solutions.

“If you are going to shut down a [paediatric] service like Modbury it would be foolish or foolhardy to enact both sets of cuts at the same time,” AMA SA president Patricia Montanaro.

Royal College of Surgeons SA president Peter Subramaniam agreed.

“The way paediatric surgery in South Australia is delivered it should be looked at from a state-wide perspective rather than at individual hospitals or individual networks,” Subramaniam said.

“We are a small state and if we cut services to one hospital that work needs to go somewhere else and if there is no capacity for the WCH to absorb [those services] we are not solving a problem, we are creating one.”

The Government yesterday announced it would remove 30 beds and 82 jobs at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital, saving $16.7 million through a number of measures including fast-tracking patient discharges.

Health Minister Jack Snelling said a consultants’ review found the hospital was spending more than $1000 per patient at the hospital compared to its peers with recommendations including reducing the length of stay for patients and revising nursing resourcing levels and medical officers’ rosters.

At almost exactly the same time yesterday, the Government confirmed plans to shut the Modbury Hospital inpatient paediatric ward in December with Snelling saying patient care would not be compromised.

The AMA and the Royal College of Surgeons were concerned the review of the Women’s and Children’s Hospital was not based on clinical data.

“We do not believe any children’s discharge is delayed,” Montanaro said.

She said while it was appropriate to have a review, “what now needs to happen is no reduction in beds or patient dollars until a further review is undertaken”.

“We think there is a flaw in the data and the flaw is not comparing the WCH to the right hospital or peer hospitals,” Montanaro said.

“When you are talking about extremely specialised services you need to compare to the right hospitals and the mix of services at the WCH doesn’t allow it to be compared to peers – the comparisons [the review] used were not the right ones.”

She said where there a comparison which did not look favourable the Government needed to “drill down into those details and see why they are occurring and whether changing that is appropriate or whether they are comparing it to something different”.

Subramaniam agreed that the review appeared to be looking at cost cutting rather than focusing on patient needs.

“We understand the needs for ensuring efficiencies are met but our concern in the announcement is that there was no clinical data provided and one is keen to know what clinical data was looked at to justify the decisions.

“It should be more than cost cutting measures; it should be about delivery of patient care.”

Subramaniam said the college remained concerned about the lack of paediatric surgical services at the Lyell McEwin hospital.

He has previously warned that the ward’s closure could risk children’s lives.

The AMA said the move to close paediatrics at Modbury was “regrettable” and that the community “needed to be reassured” that the northern suburbs would be offered quality paediatric services.

“The issues we are talking about should be about what is good for the child and not what’s good for Northern Health Local Network,” Montanaro said.

As part of the changes outpatient services will be expanded at Modbury, with inpatient services transferred to the Lyell McEwin Hospital.

Montanaro said the system would depend on the clinical services at a new paediatric ward at the Lyell McEwin and how it would be resourced.

“People will vote with their feet and if they do not put in quality and safe services then parents will drive toward the centre.”