Dr Liz Elliott, Mullumbimby
This week my patients in Accident & Emergency at Mullumbimby hospital waited six-plus hours to have ambulance transfers to Tweed hospitals. This is distressing, substandard and is upsetting the ambulance drivers too. Numbers of cars and drivers have not increased for many years.
Yet the Health Department is to remove night doctors at Mullumbimby hospital and rely on telehealth and ambulance transfers!
One of the reasons for the shortage of ambulances is the excessive use of them by queue jumpers; another, the policy of having two drivers and a car waiting many hours at big hospitals until a bed can be found.
Please come to our Save Mullumbimby Hospital meeting on 2 August at 7pm at the Mullumbimby High School to put our questions to Mr Chris Crawford. Cutting our hospital’s service is neither kind nor economically sound.