A NEW call has been made for a community mediator to step in and help resolve the crisis that has developed at Portland District Health, as three federal election candidates push for the Commonwealth to directly fund the service.
The Portland Community Health Action Group has made the call in open letters to Peter Matthews, the chairman of the PDH board and Steve Garner, who fills the same role for the Committee for Portland.
The letters cover the recent crises at the hospital and the community reaction to those events.
“Given the above and more that we hear from hospital employees continually, we are sure you understand that the present PDH board does not have the full confidence of the thousands of Portland residents who’ve voiced their concerns over the past six weeks through activities organised by the Portland Community Health Action Group,” says the letter to Professor Matthews.
“That said we have statements by (Mr Garner) in recent editions of the Portland Observer that your board has been appointed to manage the health service and should be allowed to do so.
“However, we also note his comments in the April 5 edition of the Portland Observer that there is a crisis at (PDH) and the only way to deal with it is to have an umpire get all sides together to deal with the crisis.”
In its letter to Mr Garner, the action group calls on the Committee for Portland to join it to call on Glenelg Shire Council to host a series of meetings and workshops “at which all sides – the PDH board, the Portland Community Health Action Group, the Committee for Portland and other community representatives – can meet and come to a common understanding about what services we can realistically expect PDH to deliver at our hospital” in the future.
Given Mayor Anita Rank was a past PDH board member “and her active involvement in the issue over the past four weeks” it would be appropriate for another councillor to chair the meetings “leaving the Mayor free to participate in the discussion freely”.
Should the Committee for Portland decline to become involve the action group would call on the council directly.
Given that three days after the last community meeting Health Minister Martin Foley visited PDH and guaranteed an extra $7 million a year in the budget, with the promise of more to come, the PDH board should be able to discuss service delivery plans “knowing that they have the required funding to agree on a service model that we can all be confident PDH will be able to deliver”, both letters say.
● Meanwhile three candidates in the Federal Election have called for a radical overhaul of the way PDH is funded.
Craige Kensen of the United Australia Party, a former paramedic who has worked out of PDH, and independent Graham Garner want the federal government to fund the hospital and others like it directly, while Amanda Mead of the Liberal Democrats has called for full decentralisation where the Commonwealth gives the money to PDH directly and locals decide how it is spent.
“I could see the cracks were there even before COVID with inadequate funding and staffing,” Mr Kensen said.
“When COVID hit it made it even worse.”
Recent issues with birthing and the urgent care centre were only pushing the issue on to nearby hospitals such as Hamilton and Warrnambool.
“The trouble is they’re overloaded as well,” Mr Kensen said.
“Hamilton has a tiny little emergency centre you can’t even walk around. It just magnifies the problems with Portland now on bypass as well.
“Federal should take it over, we’ve seen the states can’t handle it.
“States skim money off the top and it doesn’t go where it’s needed.
“We’ve also got people on rural boards who have no relationship with the town and some are just professionals who transfer from one board to another.”
Mr Garner said funding of hospitals such as Portland, and staffing, had been a big issue for a long time.
“The hospitals have got to be controlled by the federal government,” he said.
“The problem we’ve got now is too many people running these services don’t give a rats about the people that are affected,” he said.
“That’s abominable not to be able to roll into Portland hospital and give childbirth.
“It’s almost got to the point it’s unbelievable. Really it gets down to who is managing the money.”
Ms Mead said the Liberal Democrats believed in decentralisation.
“It’s pretty horrible what’s happening, not just with Portland but Horsham, Terang and Mortlake too,” she said.
“We want to decentralise so that people in Portland are making decisions for Portland.
“We would like to see designated funding to be allocated to rural areas, not regional, so you’re not giving it to the state and the state gives it to Geelong or Frankston.
“The people running the hospital also need to be from the area so they know their demographic.
“Locals can make those decisions better.”
