By Corey Everitt
Local complaints of hours-long wait times, overcrowding and staff stretched thin have surfaced about Casey Hospital’s Emergency Room as local MP Jason Wood starts a petition calling for its planned upgrade to begin.
Mr Wood, the Federal Member for La Trobe, published an online petition on Wednesday 12 June calling on the State Government to begin construction on the new emergency department at Casey Hospital.
The exact plan is for another emergency department dedicated to child patients and their families, but not exclusively as it will expand emergency cubicles at Casey Hospital from 58 to 130 and increase the annual presentations by 52,000.
The funding for this project is shared with a similar project with Werribee Mercy Hospital, a total of $236 million.
A spokesperson for the State Department of Health said in May that construction would begin in 2024 for an estimated completion date of 2026.
The 2023-24 State Budget listed the project, including Werribee Mercy Hospital, to be completed at an estimated date of early 2027.
Regardless of the exact date, neither is quick enough for Jason Wood nor for some local residents.
Jackie and Steve Marsland are Berwick locals, who have had many experiences with the ER of Casey Hospital due to Jackie’s severe asthma.
They have spent countless hours in the waiting room where they claim it is regularly overcrowded to the point that they “don’t feel comfortable there, they are so overworked”.
“We need an expansion desperately, it’s just not good,” Jackie said. “It’s not the doctors’ fault, it’s not the nurses’ fault; they are just overwhelmed.”
They have many experiences of waiting for hours to be seen, sometimes in the middle of the night, as Jackie labors with breathing from an asthma attack or an allergic reaction.
“There is a sign in the ER which gives the general wait time and I’ve seen it showing up to nine hours,” Steve said.
“One time my son’s appendix burst and I took him to the ER in the middle of the night where there were only two others in the waiting room and we still had to wait for six hours.”
Jackie added: “It’s so out of control, one time we were waiting for hours and there was a mother with a crying baby trying to calm them down in her arms and after a while the poor woman just passed out and collapsed, the baby fell, everyone was beside themselves.”
One time Steve was with Jackie in the ER because she was having trouble swallowing from what she suspected was an allergic reaction.
After a long wait, a nurse looked at her and told her tonsils are very large, Jackie informed the nurse she didn’t have any tonsils, rather that was just how swollen her throat was.
Jason Wood himself has experienced the traffic at Casey’s ER back in 2018.
“When I took my daughter to the Casey Hospital for an allergic reaction years ago, it was the middle of the day on Friday or Saturday and I was shocked to see a line out the door for the ER,” he said.
“From there I contacted the Health Minister Greg Hunt and I said ‘you aren’t going to believe how packed it is here’.”
This was before the Covid pandemic, Jackie’s own experience goes back before the pandemic too, she even recalls hearing a nurse at Casey Hosipital say in early 2019: ‘God help us if we have a pandemic’.
While the long wait times pack out the ER, overcrowding is a regular occurrence they claim.
“My husband says it’s like a warzone, so many people crammed in the ER,” Jackie said.
“When we had to wait one time, the whole ER was full of people with the flu, when we went home we both got the flu and in my condition that made me sick for weeks.”
In part, this is caused by the new triage practices that Hospitals took on since covid, where patients are assessed at the desk, but for Jackie since coming out of the worst of covid this has added an invasive element to ER.
“They don’t even see you anymore, before covid you go into triage, you tell them what is happening, they take you out of the waiting room to check you, do tests and determine if you need to be seen by a doctor now or later,” Jackie said.
“Since covid you go to ER, which is crowded, and they do all of it through a glass panel right there in the room, where they ask very personal questions in front of everyone.
“I once had to lift my top all the up for them, expose myself in the ER with several men sitting right next to me, it’s awful.”
Jackie and Steve do not blame health workers for the situation, they can only do so much within the capacity they are given out of the unprecedented impact of the covid pandemic.
They want to see the new emergency department begin as soon as possible to mend the situation and relieve the burden on health workers, 2026-2027 is not soon enough.
“They are running out of money for things and are moving slowly, but you can’t put a hold on the health system,” Steve said.
“With the size that Casey is, it’s just not good enough.
“You look into the amount of people expected to move in, it’s, nah, just too late.”
Jason Wood hopes to push both the State and Federal Governments to get it started now.
“It’s been taking years and it hasn’t even started, I’ve spoken with a lot of the doctors and nurses there and the frustration directly felt,” he said
“Working with Monash Health is great, it’s a problem with the upper level and it’s just got to get started.”
“It was a joint agreement between State and Federal Governments, it was the best way to do it, but they’re just delaying it.”
Federal Minister for Health and Aged Care, Mark Butler, said the Federal Government’s building of clinics would take pressure off hospitals.
“There is no higher priority in health for the Albanese Government than taking pressure off hospitals by rebuilding general practice,“ he said.
“After nine long years of cuts and neglect by the former government, the Albanese Government is making Medicare stronger for all Australians.
“Too many people are having to end up in a hospital emergency department because they can’t get the care they need in the community when and where they need it.
“That’s why the Government is establishing 58 Medicare Urgent Care Clinics across the country to take pressure off hospitals, they will be open extended hours, seven days a week and will be fully bulk billed.
“The Australian Government is committed to strengthening Medicare and reducing the pressure on our hospitals so they can provide the quality care our people deserve.“
A spokesperson for the State Government rejected Jason Wood’s petition.
“We won’t be lectured how to deliver healthcare by a man who served under the Abbott Government which delivered the biggest cut to public health in Australia’s history,“they said.
“Jason Wood’s claims that we are delaying the expansion of the Casey Hospital are completely false. Planning is underway and construction is scheduled to begin next year.“
“The Andrews Labor Government is delivering Melbourne’s south-east the healthcare they deserve – this $236 million project for bigger emergency departments at Casey and Werribee Mercy Hospital builds on the $135 million expansion of Casey Hospital which was completed in 2020.“
