With recent statistics showing increases in ambulance and emergency department wait times at Gosford Hospital, Member for Gosford, Liesl Tesch, said she was concerned the replacement of the Ettalong ambulance station would further impact services.
The Bureau of Health Information (BHI) Healthcare Quarterly results for October to December 2021 indicated only 43.8 per cent of Priority 1 calls to ambulances were responded to within 15 minutes (a 10.2 per cent decrease) and only 53.9 per cent of treatment was started on time (a 7.3 per cent decrease).
Only 49.4 per cent of patients were leaving the Emergency Department within four hours (a 6.1 per cent decrease), the results indicated.
The future of staff at the existing Ettalong ambulance station could not be confirmed by the NSW Government following the announcement that a new station would be built in the grounds of Woy Woy Hospital.
The new station, announced in late November, is expected to open in early 2023 and replace the Ettalong station.
Reports at the time suggested staff at the Ettalong station were blindsided by the relocation and only found out via NSW Health’s handout.
“This is dangerous for everyone in our healthcare system – not only for patients but also staff, who are pushed to extreme levels as they try to serve the needs of our community,” Tesch said.
“It is unconscionable to close down a vital piece of our healthcare infrastructure when the system is clearly buckling under pressure and in desperate need for more funding.
But health authorities dismissed Tesch’s concerns as unfounded.
Health Minister, Brad Hazzard, confirmed staff were told five days before the public announcement was made.
A NSW Ambulance spokesperson also said the new Woy Woy station would not have a negative impact on services.
“Ambulance services in the lower Central Coast will be boosted by the relocation of the Ettalong ambulance station, with a new station being built 5km away in Woy Woy,” the spokesperson said.
“Woy Woy has been identified through service planning as the optimal response area for responding to triple-zero emergencies in the region.
“The October to December 2021 quarter was another challenging one for NSW Ambulance paramedics and call-takers, who continued to deliver excellent out-of-hospital care despite unprecedented demand driven largely by the tail end of the Delta outbreak and emerging Omicron wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to the spokesperson, NSW Ambulance had a total of 320,729 responses in the October to December 2021 quarter, the highest for an October to December quarter since Bureau of Health Information (BHI) Healthcare Quarterly began reporting in 2010.
In the Gosford area, 225 responses were triaged as immediately life-threatening medical emergencies (Priority 1A) – an increase of 24.3 per cent, or 44 more responses, compared with the same quarter in 2020.
“Despite this increase in demand, the median response time for these most urgent cases in the Gosford area was eight minutes, which continues to be within the 10-minute benchmark,” the spokesperson said.
Hazzard said the station relocation was prioritised as part of the Rural Ambulance Infrastructure (RAIR) program.
“NSW Ambulance and Health Infrastructure worked to identify a new location using best practice modelling software which maps triple zero calls to determine the most suitable location for mobile emergency care in the region,” Hazzard said.
The new station will include internal parking for up to 10 emergency ambulance vehicles, administration areas, a training room and a gym.
Maisy Rae