Wee Waa district residents came out in force on Tuesday.
Fed up and frustrated, about 250 people took time off from work and away from their daily lives to attend the ‘Save our Wee Waa hospital’ rally, with many more signing a petition calling for action.
Concerned community members organised the peaceful and informative protest in the hope ‘people power’ will make an impact and help keep the hospital’s doors open and lead to the long-awaited recruitment of a permanent doctor.
Narrabri Shire Council has declared it is standing firm with the Wee Waa community to “demand urgent action from Hunter New England Health and the NSW government to address the resourcing issues that are facing the Wee Waa Hospital.”
The message from a raft of passionate speakers at the rally was clear.
“We need this hospital,” councillor Ethan Towns told the crowd.
“Young people are just as mad and sick of this as everyone else,” the 26-year-old Wee Waarian said.
“We keep getting hit with this catch-22 of ‘well, there’s not enough nurses for a doctor’. Well, the nurses are leaving because there’s no doctor.”
“We need a doctor now,” said Cr Brett Dickinson as he led the rally in a chant “that’s what we want, we need a doctor now.”
Mayor Darrell Tiemens fired up the crowd, “The supermarket in Wee Waa has longer operating hours than our hospital,” he said.
“For more than three and a half years, Wee Waa hospital has been left in limbo.
“No doctor, barely enough nurses to handle emergencies. Wards sitting empty, full of beds but no patients. And just a few hours a day – 8 to 5:30,” he said.
“This is not how it’s supposed to be. Not for a community that has given so much, worked so hard, and relied so deeply on this place.”
Council said it has been made aware that the acting hospital manager has resigned, there is no doctor on-site, and the hospital is having to utilise telehealth consultations for cases that could be better managed by the provision of in-person care.
“If senior officials or state leaders experienced serious medical emergencies such as a stroke or snakebite, they would not settle for telehealth services. This lack of equity and fairness for our rural communities is unacceptable”, added Cr Tiemens.
“The Wee Waa community are not asking for facilities like Royal North Shore Hospital but do expect a fully operational hospital offering 24/7 emergency services, inpatient care, and palliative services.
“The Narrabri Shire and its residents significantly contribute to the economy, and it is not unreasonable for the community to expect that these contributions are acknowledged through the provision of services such as those being sought after at the Wee Waa Hospital”.
“The Wee Waa Hospital is a vital community service that is relied upon by residents from Wee Waa, Rowena, Pilliga, Cuttabri, Burren Junction, Merah North, Spring Plains, and
beyond.
“And, when it is functioning at its full capacity it ensures there is not an additional strain on Narrabri Hospital.
“The local community has poured its time, effort, and resources into fundraising for the hospital over many decades, so they rightly feel that this is their hospital, a community asset, and not just a facility owned by the state.
Council strongly believes that once the Wee Waa Hospital is downgraded or closed, it will not be reinstated.
“The senior executives and bureaucrats at Hunter New England Health are paid to find solutions to these types of issues, yet the community has seen no meaningful progress,” said Cr Tiemens.
“It’s time for the Health Minister and Premier to honour their commitments, support rural communities, and ensure basic healthcare needs are met. I urge them to put their money where their mouth is”.
Cr Tiemens told the rally, “To the people of Wee Waa, of Narrabri Shire, of all the communities that depend on this hospital: your voice matters.
“Let us stand together. Let us show them that this community will not be ignored.
“We are taxpayers …Yet here we are fighting for the most basic healthcare, while our cities thrive.
“Every person, no matter where they are, has the right to good healthcare.
“The road ahead will not be easy. But if we stand together, if we demand better, if we refuse to give up – then we will win. And we will get the hospital this community deserves.”
Urged to raise their voices, well-known and respected locals stood up to speak at the rally. Mustering up the courage to share their personal stories – many heart-wrenching – and terrible experiences to hopefully make a difference and create enough noise to get Hunter New England Health and the NSW government to listen.
And it wasn’t just patients, but former staff too.
High praise was given to the health service staff, past and present, who have been placed under an enormous amount of pressure.
“I am not going to blame any of the staff because the staff are wonderful but if they don’t get the back-up they deserve then it just falls apart,” said Wee Waa farmer Richard Schwager when sharing a bad experience endured by one of his sisters.
“Give us back our hospital…we need it open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
“And with that goes a VMO because without a doctor you won’t get the staff, to return it (the hospital) to its former glory.”
“My main message is that none of the problems with Wee Waa hospital are new,” said a statement read on behalf of a former staff member, who believes Hunter New England Health has been “incompetent” in supporting the community.
Semi-retired school principal, town bugler and family man Peter Carrett highlighted the importance of in-person consultations rather than tele-health.
“Because there was no physical examination (at Wee Waa hospital), they didn’t know that the pain wasn’t in fact in my back, it was in my kidney,” explained Peter Carret.
“In November 2022, I collapsed at school and unable to walk I was taken by ambulance to the Wee Waa hospital.
“A doctor on the other end of the computer screen diagnosed back pain.”
Mr Carrett explained “as most men do” he put up with the pain for another 18 months.
“Before blood in the urine sent me to Dr Sivanathan at the medical centre.
“He gave me a physical examination and knew immediately it wasn’t ordinary back pain.
“When I saw a specialist in Tamworth a fortnight later, he said the tumor was slow growing and could have been growing for three years or more.
“I’ve had an operation to remove the tumor, along with one kidney and had chemotherapy to ensure the cancer was gone. This means I’m on the mend. And God willing, in the future will be called a cancer survivor not a victim of cancer.”
“Something as basic as health access, shouldn’t be something we have to fight for,” Bernadette Melton told the media at the rally.
Robyn Keeffe from the Wee Waa Local Aboriginal Land Council shared a story on behalf of a family whose son had a medical episode earlier this year.
“If we had not had access to the Wee Waa Hospital, he may not have still been with us – thank you to the staff at the hospital.”
Community member Wendy Vankuyk said Wee Waa Hospital was once “a thriving 14-bed hospital, often completely full,” she said, “It’d be 18 years ago since I commenced work here in office administration.”
“Over the years, there were sometimes patients transferred down from Narrabri when they had an overflow.
“And then the hospital began to be downgraded,” she told the Wee Waa News.
“The community raised funds for a wonderful palliative care room there.
“My sister-in-law, Dora Oudenryn, was one of the last people to be able to die in that room.
“And without that, she would have been in Narrabri with so much less access to the people who loved her. And that room sits there empty now.
“The community spent thousands on that palliative care room.
“And then Hunter New England Health themselves spent thousands on creating a new emergency department.
“It sits there virtually unused.”
Mel Manchee and John Clements from Member for Barwon Roy Butler’s office attended the rally, with Mr Clements also speaking.
Mr Butler was unable to be there but told the Wee Waa News, “I have been in regular communication with the minister and the most senior executives at Hunter New England LHD regarding my disappointment and concerns over the lack of progress of the reinstatement of services at Wee Waa hospital.
“There is no doubt the community turning up the way it did yesterday sends a clear message to the minister that the community are at the heart of the concerns that I have expressed.
“We know the staffing issues can be resolved, as recently Western NSW LHD with a similar problem at Nyngan hospital were able to resolve their issues in just over a year. The question is why is HNELHD unable to achieve the same outcome.
“My most recent meeting with the minister was last week. This meeting was to cover concerns over obstetrics at Narrabri Hospital and the growing list of less-than-ideal outcomes for people attending both Wee Waa and Narrabri hospitals.
“The minister is reviewing responses to these concerns given my dissatisfaction with the accuracy and the genuineness of responses from HNELHD.
“Wee Waa hospital is discussed at every meeting with the minister.
“The recent focus of my interaction with the minister regarding the Wee Waa Hospital are my deepest concerns that HNELHD and the local doctor have not been able to resolve a commercial outcome regarding the VMO rights at the hospital.
“I am insisting that the minister and myself see more detail on the nature of these negotiations.”
The Courier/Wee Waa News asked Hunter New England Local Health District for comment on the ‘Save our Wee Waa hospital’ rally and was provided the below quotes from Susan Heyman, executive director of operations, HNELHD.
“Hunter New England Local Health District is committed to providing high quality, safe care at all of its facilities, including Wee Waa Health Service. Wee Waa Health Service is fully networked and operates within a tiered system to ensure all patients receive safe, timely and compassionate care in the most appropriate setting.
“This includes for our most serious unwell patients who are transferred to the facility best able to provide the most suitable level of care.
“When a doctor is not on site, the highly skilled bedside team at Wee Waa Health Service is supported by Telehealth via the My Emergency Doctor service.
“Telehealth services do not replace doctors, they provide additional support for local hospitals, where required, to assist bedside teams with diagnosis, treatment, admission and, when needed, transfer to another hospital.
“The emergency department (ED) continues to operate from 8am until 5.30pm, seven days a week, and presentations outside of these times are redirected to Narrabri Hospital.
“We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience caused to patients and their families and thank the community for their patience and understanding.
“We assure the community the district is committed to extending hours at Wee Waa Health Services’ ED once it is safe to do so.
“Recruiting and retaining the required nurses and doctors in rural and remote areas remains a longstanding challenge, not just for Hunter New England Local Health District, but across the entire state and country.
“Our district continues to advertise for acute staff and offer incentives for those who join our rural and regional health services, including Wee Waa.”
The Courier/Wee Waa News also contacted Health Minister Ryan Park.
He said, “I am in constant contact with the local member Roy who is a strong advocate for his community on this and other issues. I acknowledge that health worker shortages continue to plague health systems across the world, in particular regional, rural and remote communities. “We have undertaken a comprehensive range of measures to bring more health workers to the bush including:
• Doubling rural health worker incentives;
• Introducing study subsidies for regional health workers;
• Investing $200.1 million in health worker accommodation;
• Boosting doctors in regional GP surgeries a well as hospitals through the single employer model; and
• Beginning to deliver an extra 500 regional paramedics across the state.
“We won’t undo 12 years of neglect by the Liberals and Nationals overnight, but we are undertaking the necessary reforms to turn things around.”
A further report will be in a future edition.
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