Queensland Health says it is unclear how many surgeries have had to be postponed because of the national day of mourning for Queen Elizabeth II today.
Queensland Health says it is unclear how many surgeries have had to be postponed because of the national day of mourning for Queen Elizabeth II on Thursday. Patients wanting to access medical services on Thursday were warned to expect delays, while some services would not be available.
The snap announcement by the federal government of the public holiday has thrown a number of sectors into a scramble to either organise their rosters or opt to close for the day. The state’s public hospitals are treating the day as a normal public holiday, meaning emergency and high-category surgery will take place but some peripheral services will be closed. That includes services such as day clinics attached to hospitals, as well as regular information and support services. Specialist appointments are also understood to have been cancelled in many cases, unless individual doctors elected to work on the public holiday. A Queensland Health spokesman said it was up to individual hospital and health services to manage their rosters, and they could not say how many surgeries would have to be pushed back. “Our hospitals may need to consider rescheduling some non-urgent care on a case-by-case basis, particularly where the national day of mourning for her majesty the Queen impacts workforce and patient availability,” Queensland Health said in a statement. “Every hospital will work to optimise continuation of surgical and outpatient services, tailored around these impacts.”understands there has been significant back-and-forth at the administration level of a number of individual hospital and health services over which services to postpone. Metro North HHS, which takes in the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital and the Prince Charles Hospital, said in a statement it had postponed some elective surgeries, but could not say how many.Metro South HHS, which takes in the Princess Alexandra and Logan hospitals, said it would “offer elective surgery services and outpatient services to patients who elect to proceed with their appointments on the public holiday”. By contrast, West Moreton HHS, which takes in Ipswich hospital among others, and Sunshine Coast HHS said they were not delaying elective surgeries. Gold Coast HHS said it had not postponed any elective surgeries, but stressed other services had been closed due to the holiday. “Community clinics, such as our Sexual Health Clinic at Southport, will be closed and resume business as usual on Friday,” a spokeswoman said in a statement.The AMA Queensland estimates about 5000 elective surgeries across the country will be cancelled on Thursday. “We do have members that work all over Queensland in big hospitals, small hospitals, and things haven’t changed a lot,” AMA Queensland president Dr Maria Boulton told 4BC on Tuesday.
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