ANOTHER part of Portland hospital has fallen victim to a staffing shortage, with no doctor overnight in the Urgent Care Centre until at least next week.

A Portland District health memo to staff at the weekend outline the lack of a hospital medical officer in the centre between 10.30pm and 8am, from Saturday, April 23, to Sunday, May 1.

A hospital medical officer is an on-call doctor who covers the urgent care centre and the wards.

The memo says the plan is for “experienced” nursing staff on site to cover with backup from the MyEmergencyDoctor telehealth service and the “virtual” emergency department service with Warrnambool-based South West Healthcare.

One doctor scoffed at the second part of that plan.

“They have a lack of space at Warrnambool and they are struggling to cope there,” the doctor said.

“Now they’re struggling and wondering what to do because it will be four years before their new hospital is built.

“It’s just a crazy situation.”

The hospital is also on diversion for obstetrics (birthing), general surgery and acute emergencies requiring airway support – that began at 8am last Friday and is scheduled to run through to 8am Monday.

A PDH spokesman said the health service “continues to provide the community safe, effective urgent care”.

“Our Urgent Care Centre remains open and our clinical staff are drawing on telehealth services including My Emergency Doctor where necessary,” he said.

“We also have several senior specialist medical staff on call.”

State Member for South West Coast Roma Britnell said the Portland community “should be gravely concerned about PDH being without overnight urgent care doctors” for the period.

“Having nurses or telehealth services for acute emergencies requiring airway support overnight for an extended period of time is a recipe for disaster,” Ms Britnell said.

“That’s not a slight on the nurses or staff at the hospital given the wonderful work they do.

“It is a slight on the PDH board and (state government) for failing to have proper workforce management in place to ensure essential services are available.”

The government and PDH board said they were implementing all the recommendations of the Hillis Report into future service delivery at the hospital, however there was no evidence any positive change was happening, Ms Britnell said.

“Services are disappearing before our eyes and this government needs to start taking action to ensure the future of PDH, not just hide behind the pandemic as the cause of all these problems,” Ms Britnell said.

“The Premier and Minister for Health continually say rural Victorians deserve the same level of healthcare as those in metropolitan Melbourne – but they are just empty words.

“Losing someone at PDH from cardiac arrect because there are no doctors available to intubate is completely unacceptable. This is literally a matter of life and death.”

● Meanwhile, the PDH crisis finally got an airing at a Glenelg Shire Council meeting on Tuesday night – though little more than half the councillors actually voted.

Cr Michael Carr moved a motion that the council acknowledged the importance of PDH and its staff “in delivering a safe and effective health system that supports the needs of our community”.

“We encourage Portland District health to engage with the Department of Health to seek further funding to deliver the recommendations of the Hillis report as adopted by the Board of Management of Portland District Health,” the motion says.

Cr Carr told the meeting the community had made its feelings clear about the issues during a march on the hospital in late February and the public meeting in the Portland Civic Hall about one month later.

“The community has voiced that it does not accept or expect pregnant women within our community to drive 100km to give birth,” he said.

Along with the urgent care issues and others “the expectation is PDH is the health provider that delivers that service”.

“I’m confident that if we remain positive and support PDH things will improve quickly,” Cr Carr said.

“Positivity creates positivity.”

The motion was carried unanimously with just four councillors – Cr Carr, Scott Martin, Chrissy Hawker and Jayden Smith – in the room.

Gilbert Wilson is absent due to being a candidate in the federal election while Karen Stephens excused herself citing a conflict of interest (her husband Owen is the chief executive of the Casterton hospital) and Mayor Anita Rank did likewise, saying she had a conflict of interest due to a “previous role I had there”, referring to her time as a PDH board member.