Save Modbury Hospital - Maternity. Paediatrics. What's next?

Below are some excerpts from a letter that was sent to our state MPs by one of the MHCSG members. Reprinted by permission, name and address supplied.

To the Members representing Florey, Little Para, Newland, Playford, Torrens and Wright,

Dear Ministers,
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2. According to the Makin electoral office, there are some 187 schools private and public, kindergartens, day care centres and playgroups in the Campbeltown/Tea Tree Gully area, so obviously there is not a lack or children who may need paediatric care at their local hospital at Modbury. I have no idea how many sporting sides play in the area.
In recent years there has been the addition of Greenwith and Golden Grove - the latter considered the best suburb in Australia - housing estates with more young children to add to the population of the N/East area.

3. We are told to go to the Women's and Children's in North Adelaide, which is choc full anyway and falling into disrepair, where you cannot find a park, or the Lyell McEwin, which unless you have a vehicle, is hard to get to with a child with a high fever or is vomiting over all and sundry, a severe asthmatic who can't breathe or a diabetic who is in or close to a diabetic coma, broken arms-legs just to mention a few of the things which Modbury copes with. Elizabeth is not always easy to find a car park at some times of the day either. Most times these children need admitting for treatment by paediatricians for several days or even weeks at a time. This does not take into account accidents in the school grounds or sporting accidents in the area. These children deserve much better services than this blinkered government is providing. People from Elizabeth are coming to the Modbury as the waiting time is too long in casualty at the Lyell McEwin, which is a locked up, intimidating waiting area anyway.

4. What happens "when your child takes ill at 2 am in the morning and you can't get them to Elizabeth? Call an ambulance service, which is already bursting at the seams? Apart from that, you are using a facility that is taking them away from someone in a serious accident or having a heart attack and really need medical treatment on the way to a hospital. You would be shocked when you got the account if you did not have ambulance cover, which a lot of people can't afford in these trying times of mortgage increases, petrol costs and food costs increasing week by week.
I was informed by SA Ambulance Services that it is $688 for an emergency call out from Modbury to the Women's and Children's Hospital!
A transfer from Modbury to the Lyell McEwin/Women's and Children's Hospital it will cost $153 plus $4 per kilometre. So how it is a cost saving exercise for the government who I assume would be paying for these transfers after 23 hours in the Modbury Hospital for a sick child
We, the taxpayer don't get your exorbitant pay increases you give yourselves do we? We have to fight for every paltry cent to get a pay rise and then we do not get subsidised meals, vehicles, registration, petrol, insurance, postage, telephones, computers/internet etc. etc. (paid for by we the people - the long suffering tax payer).
I would not feel safe driving to Elizabeth/North Adelaide at that hour of the morning anyway, passing through vacant land with no phone boxes in sight on an unknown road in an unfamiliar area with a very sick child when I am only 5 km away from my - the tax payer -local Hospital. Not all of us have the luxury of mobile 'phones .

5. Who is going to foot the bill if your child is transferred from the Modbury to the other hospitals this government says we must use? ($153 plus $4 per kilometre.)

6. We are told by the Premier with great fanfare and elation that there will be two new subdivisions to go ahead in the Smithfield and Buckland Park area catering for more people and children and the army is moving its forces from the Holdsworthy Base to Edinburgh. Just more children to cram into the Lyell McEwin Hospital. Virginia, Angle Vale and Gawler are all expanding rapidly but have no extra local public facilities.
It has been reported this week that more land for housing is to be developed in the Salisbury and Gawler areas over the next few years and yet there is inadequate transport and power and water (where is the overdue Gawler dam which would avoid flooding in Virginia and Gawler?) available now with the existing population. Angle Vale, with no public transport - the government representative arrogantly told a meeting held there, that it was a rural area and yet they pay metropolitan registration fees, is already growing with a new shopping centre almost finished on Heaslip Road. Just more and more people and children to overcrowd the Lyell McEwin Hospital that we are being forced to use.

7. Who is going to subsidise our petrol and driving costs needed to drive these distances to visit your child every day - sometimes twice/three times a day if it is necessary to be with them. Not you. Can we use a govemment car that we the taxpayer pay for to take us there? You only look after your own needs and don't look further than your noses as to how the average, hardworking person lives to exist.

8. How do you get to these hospitals in an emergency if you are relying on public transport? The first bus leaves the depot at around 6 am and finishes around midnight. We the people, the ordinary person who employs you, do not have the facilities of public - read taxpayer funded cars at our disposal as you politicians do. We have to pay our own way. Are you going to provide taxis for us to use to get us to these far flung hospitals when necessary? I think not!!! Sunday public transport services are even worse.
A taxi to the Women's and Children's from Modbury is about $30 and to the Lyell McEwin $40. How are parents supposed to afford these costs? ('phone call 30th August, 2007) How long will we have to wait to get a taxi to come anyway?

9. A pensioner is looking after a grandchild for the weekend and needs immediate attention in the middle of the night with an asthmatic or diabetic grand child. How can they afford a taxi fare to Adelaide or Elizabeth on their $219 a week income? They wouldn't even have the amount of money for a taxi ($30/$40) in their purse after doing their shopping. Even if the grandparent did have ambulance cover, it wouldn't cover their grandchild.

10. Years ago, I had a child in hospital for two weeks after surgery on a badly broken leg. He had seven plasters from groin to big toe in 12 weeks as they were continually breaking down and then there were many weeks of physiotherapy to get him mobile again. He was one of the lucky ones, as his physios remarked he was in good physical condition due to playing a lot of sport and didn't experience as much muscle wastage as usual. His paediatrician was able to keep an eye on him with the complications of being a diabetic. I would have been worn to a frazzle travelling every day to these hospitals you want us to use.
Have you even considered the cost involved if we have to use these out of area hospitals apart from the tlme and inconvenience of the parent doing the run around, sometimes dragging siblings along too if they are not at school?
He was also what they called a 'brittle' diabetic. He would vomit only once or twice and would need to be on IV. He was so dehydrated most times that they couldn't get the drip to run fast enough into him to re-hydrate him. He was then kept in for several days under either observation or treatment from his own paediatrician which he knew and trusted. Thank God for the Modbury is what I always said!!
When he reached puberty and went into a hypo he would get violent and lash out at anyone trying to give him anything orally. I had to put him in the back seat of the car to get him to hospital as he could have caused an accident if had he been sitting in the front seat and punching and thrashing around. He was unaware of course, but it was a scary time for me until I reached the emergency bay where the orderlies would take him. I could then park the car (quite easily at Modbury). In the meantime, he was being processed for treatment at any hour of the day or night. Would you like to have to drive to North Adelaide or Elizabeth under those conditions? I was a widow and couldn't afford ambulance cover.
When he was initially diagnosed a diabetic at 2 1/2 years of age, his paediatrician was in North Adelaide His tests and admissions were done at the Children's Hospital. We found this too inconvenient as appointments overlapped times when I had to be home for my other son. In an emergency he would be admitted to the Modbury Hospital anyway. Therefore he had two sets of records to be taken into account. We had him transferred to the Modbury Hospital by his original paediatrician and that was the best thing that we ever did.

11. This government has squandered good money on a tramline that was unnecessary and unwanted when the Women's and Children's desperately needs general maintenance to begin with let alone a major upgrade. How scared would you be to be stuck in a malfunctioning elevator with your child on the way to surgery? Just as well it wasn't a burst appendix? The family would have had a right to sue you for the distress, trauma and breakdown of the hospital services. You offered a paltry $150,000 to the Women's and Children's but $100,000 to fire affected Greece already receiving aid from the Federal Government already contributing to that disaster. That wouldn't even cover a coat of paint for a floor. You seem to be relying on the McDermott Foundation and now the Eddie Jack Trust to do the work our taxes should be paying for. Once again the poor public is being charged double - once by their taxes and again by donating to the Foundation. I thought the money from the Adelaide Casino and Poker machines was supposed to be for Adelaide Hospitals but no doubt it just goes into general revenue, as you don't let us see you account books to see just where our money is spent.

12. This week's 'Leader' told me that the Modbury Hospital would only keep a child in after being taken there in an emergency for 23 hours - not 24 but 23 hours!
O.K., I take little Johnny down there in my car at 2 am. Notes are taken and he is admitted for 23 hours, probably into a ward with people his grandparent's age. That is not enough time to treat him, so he is transferred to The Women's and Children's. More examinations and notes duplicated before he finally reaches a ward. He is sick, scared and tired. He doesn't know the paediatricians in a strange hospital. He knew them with at Modbury or the nurses or procedures on the ward. Mum is physically and mentally exhausted with stress and the unknown that is happening to her child and the ones left at home or even accompanying her.
Next time, he is transferred to the Lyell McEwiIl Hospital and the same thing happens. He ends up with his notes all over Adelaide as well as with his General Practitioner. How can this be a cost saving exercise for anyone? Someone has to foot the ambulance transfer and I bet it won't be the government will it! What happens when the Women's and Children's / Lyell McEwin hospitals are full and he can't be taken there! Will he be sent to The Flinders Medical Centre?

13. The Minister of Health, Mr. Hill was on radio last week for 30 minutes. What a lot of time for people to talk to him! He claimed in his ignorance, that autism is not a medical problem. What is it then - a grocery list? The so called answers were glib and held no substance at all! I believe he didn't even attend the meeting held in Tea Tree Gully regarding the Modbury Hospital and send one of his public servants. They can't even answer simple questions put to them and dither around evading the issues. What's new? The Premier, Health, Education and Transport Ministers are always conspicuous buy their absence when the public wants answers to their questions .

14. Mortgage rates are soaring, the cost of eating is getting worse week by week for just basic essentials - bread, milk, meat and fresh fruit and vegetables and will get worse with the effects of the drought. (I paid 90c for just one Royal Gala apple last week.) Is it any wonder that 'junk food' which is cheaper is put in lunch boxes instead of healthy fruit and sandwiches?

Just the cost of sending little Johnnie to the so called 'free' education schools is rising year by year. Families are doing it tough in suburbia just to exist, as are families on pensions of many kinds, so Ambulance and Private Health Cover membership is the last thing on their minds. What a shock when they get the bill for the already over taxed Ambulance service they will be forced to use, sometimes frequently, for the well being of their child! They don't have the luxury of taxpayer fimded cars/drivers supplied by their employers, US, to get their kids to a hospital at our expense do they?

15. What is the point of putting all your eggs - or in this case sick and injured children - in one basket if a hospital ward is closed down with a golden staph outbreak or worse - one of those super bug outbreaks that doesn't respond to the usual anti-biotic or other treatments. They do and have happened at the R.A.H. and W. A. C. H. What then? Maybe our children will end up at the Flinders Medical Centre!
This arrogant government sees question A and supposedly solves it with a band-aid solution with answer B. It is too stupid to see that further down the track this leads to problem C and even D and we the people - YOUR EMPLOYER, are paying a very heavy price. Maybe you will too at the next election, unless you produce the inevitable rabbits out of the hat as is usual leading up to any election and reverse this idiotic, so called cost saving exercise. It will cost you money and in the long term - votes .

16. For a so called aging grey area, there must be something in the water in the area as there were 730 + babies delivered at the Modbury Hospital in 06/07 and 1770 children admitted. Another new childcare centre is being built on Hancock Road right now. Some schools have closed their books on new enrolments. Are the over 50's suddenly reproducing again?

As you can see, I am a very disgruntled resident of the Tea Tree Gully area and do not want to see the demise of the paediatric/maternity section or what is already being catered for at our local hospital.
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It's about time governments listened to 'we the people' and took note of their needs and got their priorities straight. 'We the people', pay your salaries and perks and we deserve something better in return from them.

Well I got that off my chest and even deviated a bit but that's how I feel about this smug government that can't see anything past its' nose or keep anything within budget!

How about some action for the people of the North Eastern suburbs now! Tomorrow will be too late to reinstate these important services. Forget about 'talk fests' and committees, listen to the people that are affected.