Health district chief Margot Mains has thanked staff across the Illawarra for working tirelessly during a challenging year in the region's hospitals and health services.
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At the Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District's annual public meeting, which was held online due to increased COVID cases in the community, Ms Mains highlighted some of the biggest challenges - like aged care beds and emergency departments presentations - and successes.
Despite another difficult year - where there was record demand for hospital services - she applauded the "agility and the resilience of our staff over a significant sustained period" as truly inspirational.
"I'm simply astounded by the efforts of our staff and this year is no different," she said.
"I continue to be proud, incredibly proud of our amazing workforce for constantly focusing on providing excellent experiences, excellent clinical care, excellent outcomes for the communities that we serve."
A day in the life of the local health district:
- 447 people present to emergency departments
- 128 people on average are admitted to hospitals
- 750 telehealth and virtual health appointments,
- 8 babies delivered every day in maternity services
- 7800 employees, almost half of whom are nurses and midwives
A new five-year strategy
Ms Mains also launched a new five-year vision for the health district, outlining six major steps it plans to take between now and 2028 to transform health for a region whose population is growing faster than any other in NSW.
The first strategic outcome that the district will focus on over the next five years is that patients and carers have positive experiences and outcomes, with clinicians focusing on how people are treated and made to feel as well as their clinical outcomes.
This was highlighted as an issue for the district in 2023, as swathes of women from the Illawarra came forward as part of the NSW Parliamentary Inquiry into Birth Trauma.
The second strategic outcome was to ensure safe care, with timely and equitable access to care for the whole community, including for those who are vulnerable.
"We want to reduce the number of people needing to come to hospital as well as ensuring timely discharge of those who do need to come to hospital," Ms Mains said.
"We are constantly looking at ways to address and improve access and flow through which includes assessing and investigating alternate models of care and in response to the sustained growth and demand in our hospitals and particularly in our emergency departments."
Ms Mains said the district was passionate about expanding its virtual hospital ward and would be drawing on feedback from the community to improve and grow the service, and noted it has also made headway in address the huge challenges related to aged care.
"It is well known that we've had an incredibly challenging year in terms of reduced access to residential aged care beds for our older patients.
"Whilst I'm incredibly proud of the way that we have responded, including the development of the aged care outreach service and the transitional aged care program featuring in the video, which is next on the agenda, we must continue to work with the state, federal and local aged care providers to ensure we get sustainable solutions in the future."
Ms Mains also noted the hospital has significantly reduced the number of overdue people on the planned surgery waiting list.
"Over the past 12 months, we will continue to optimize available theater time for planned surgery as well as focus on innovative models of care that will enable more patients to receive surgery sooner," she said.
Other strategic priorities include promoting health behaviour that reduce chronic disease, ensuring that staff are engaged that well-supported, delivering research innovations and making health care financially and environmentally sustainable.
"We experienced our busiest year with demand for emergency services and inpatient care at the highest levels," she said.
"The focus therefore has been on improving strategies and developing these to improve access to services and flow of the patients through our hospitals."
Some of the top achievements of 2023 included the establishment of the virtual hospital ward, the expansion of Bulli Hospital's urgent care hours, an early discharge program for surgical patients and the opening of the Shellharbour Psychiatric Emergency Care Centre in March.
Kate McIlwain
For more than a decade, I've helped the Illawarra Mercury set the news agenda across the region. Currently I'm the paper's health reporter - covering the stories of Illawarra workers and residents in the wake of a global pandemic and at a time where our health systems are stretched to the limit.
For more than a decade, I've helped the Illawarra Mercury set the news agenda across the region. Currently I'm the paper's health reporter - covering the stories of Illawarra workers and residents in the wake of a global pandemic and at a time where our health systems are stretched to the limit.
