Steps taken to fully staff Armadale hospital's emergency dept

31/12/97

The Armadale Health Service has implemented several new initiatives to fully staff the emergency department at the Armadale-Kelmscott Memorial Hospital with top-level doctors, Health Minister Kevin Prince announced today.

"While it is recognised that the Armadale Health Service (AHS) has had difficulty maintaining 24 hour coverage by emergency specialists at the Hospital in the past, considerable effort is being expended on improving the emergency service at AHS," Mr Prince said.

"Emergency medicine is a new and emerging speciality and trained specialists are in great demand throughout Australia.

"Recruiting from the limited number of these highly sought after medical specialists is an issue for the entire health system, however AHS has had particular success recently in this regard."

New initiatives at the AHS include:

·         two doctors have verbally accepted three-year contracts to work full-time at the AHS. One of them has recently been a Registrar in Emergency Medicine at Royal Perth Hospital. The first doctor will start at Armadale in January and, subject to confirmation shortly, the second could begin as early as February;

·         a doctor waiting to take up an appointment as an emergency registrar at Fremantle Hospital in mid-1998 will attend work half-time at Armadale, starting shortly;

·         negotiations are being conducted for another doctor to shortly begin a six-month contract to work half-time at AHS; and -

·         negotiations are well advanced to recruit up to three more doctors from overseas and interstate to start at Armadale on three-year contracts in the New Year. All three have had solid emergency department experience in Australia.

Mr Prince said additional medical staff would also be recruited during 1998 to ensure that adequate emergency department staffing was sustained.

Dr Paul Mark, currently senior consultant in emergency services at Fremantle Hospital and director of emergency services at St John of God Hospital Murdoch, would take up a part-time position from February as director of medical services at AHS.

"At the same time as the AHS has been recruiting new doctors, the hospital's emergency department has undergone major renovations to raise the conditions to a standard comparable with other public hospitals in Perth," Mr Prince said.

Media contact: Diana Russell Coote 9221 1377