Wee Waa vows to keep pushing for full hospital services; Town meeting on Tuesday

The Save Our Wee Waa Hospital (SOWWH) community group has written to Health Minister Ryan Park to request the commissioning of a supplementary report or addendum to the Final Report of the Review of Wee Waa Health Service.

The group said it also sent the letter calling for a supplementary report to Member for Barwon Roy Butler.

The call comes as the volunteer campaigners rally residents to attend a town meeting set to be held at Wee Waa Public School at 5:15pm on Tuesday, July 29 to discuss the review and future of the town’s vital health service.

SOWWH is encouraging the community to attend and has also invited members of parliament. As reported in last week’s Courier, SOWWH and Narrabri Shire Council expressed ‘extreme disappointment’ and concern following the release of the Review of Wee Waa Health Service on Friday, July 11.

SOWWH committee member Carmel Schwager said the review’s recommendations were ‘a blow after months of advocacy’.

“Our community rallied, we held meetings, we gathered more than 12,000 signatures – all calling for the reinstatement of a 24/7 hospital with an on-call doctor in town,” Mrs Schwager said.

“This report doesn’t deliver that. An ‘urgent care’ clinic is not the outcome we’ve fought for, and it’s not one we will accept. Our hospital is a mere shadow of what we had in Wee Waa twenty years ago and we will continue the fight.”

Since May 2023, the hours of Wee Waa Health Service have been ‘temporarily reduced’, operating from 8am to 5.30pm. Hunter New Hunter New England Health explained at the time it was due to ‘significant challenges securing healthcare staff’.

Last week, Narrabri Shire Council said it welcomed the release of the review but said ‘the recommendations fall short of what the Wee Waa community needs and expects’.

Mayor Darrell Tiemens who is also a SOWWH member said, “We are concerned that unless Hunter New England Health and the NSW government work closely with the community from here, the result will be a plan that does not meet local needs.”

Council said one of its main concerns is ‘the recommendation to replace the emergency department with a nurse-led urgent care model, supported by virtual medical input’.

“This model is designed to treat minor injuries and illnesses, but lacks the capacity for overnight or critical care. There is no clear definition of the proposed “extended hours” of operation, no timetable for implementation, and no guarantee of staffing levels beyond 5:30pm,” said a NSC media statement.

“There are no assurances that urgent medical support will be available after-hours. That leaves residents dangerously exposed. People shouldn’t have to travel 40 kilometres to Narrabri or more than 200 kilometres to Tamworth in the middle of the night to access care in an emergency,” added Cr Tiemens.

“The review also does not recommend reinstating an on-call doctor at Wee Waa Hospital, instead suggesting virtual care and partnerships with general practices. Council believes this is inadequate for a rural town with significant distances to major hospitals,” said the NSC statement.

“Inpatient services are also slated to be significantly reduced. Despite the hospital being built to accommodate 18 beds, the review proposes opening only four to five sub-acute and non-acute beds, including one for palliative care.”

In its letter to the minister, the SOWWH group said the ‘report fails to address all the terms of reference’. And it ‘fails to consider the former service models and, as a result, has not focused on understanding the contributing recruitment and retention challenges that Minister Park stated would be considered, and indeed the report itself stated would be focused on. We consider this omission to be a critical failure of the Report and it is therefore not “fit-for-purpose” in its current form’.

SOWWH has requested ‘gaps in the report be addressed as a matter of urgency’ including: failure to analyse former models of care prior to 2018 and failure to address root cause of workforce recruitment and retention challenges.

“The review does not examine the structure, staffing and service delivery mechanisms that existed prior to service reductions in 2018, nor, in any detail, prior to further service reductions in 2023. Without this analysis, it is impossible to understand what aspects of the former models were effective, what failed, and what lessons should inform future planning,” writes SOWWH.

“The report emphasises that workforce shortages are the problem, yet fails to explore the historical, underlying reasons for that, including leadership issues, systemic barriers within HNELHD and the absence of onsite medical support. These factors must be explored in order to inform the creation of any new model so that it too, doesn’t fail,” writes SOWWH. The group explained a supplementary report was necessary to ‘provide a complete and transparent account of decisions that led to service reductions, inform the design of a sustainable medical model that reflects local realities, ensure that future workforce strategies are evidence-based and community-informed and restore public trust in the health system and its governance’.

“The Save our Wee Waa Hospital Community Group remains committed to working constructively with government and health authorities to ensure that Wee Waa and surrounding areas receive the equitable and sustainable healthcare every community deserves, and we see this request as an important part of that process,” writes SOWWH.

As reported following the review’s release, Minister for Health Ryan Park said, “I’m pleased this important work has been completed and provides a clear path forward, and I thank the staff and the local community for their support. While there is more work to be done, I know we’re on the right track and we would not even be at this point without the strong advocacy from the Member for Barwon Roy Butler. I’d like to express my sincere gratitude to Roy and I look forward to seeing Hunter New England Local Health District work closely with the Wee Waa community as they develop and implement their response to the recommendations.”