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Local heroes saluted Professor John Newnham’s lifetime work to prevent preterm births has been recognised with the 2020 Senior Australian of the Year. The award will see John (pictured here with Prime Minister Scott Morrison) travel the country talking to groups about the work of the Women’s & Infant Research Foundation and the breakthroughs it has made to benefit women and their babies into the future. Also honoured was regional cardiologist Dr Tony Mylius with an AM in the general division for his “significant service to community health, and to cardiology”.
ED for Hollywood Planning approval for a private emergency department at Hollywood Private Hospital has been granted, with work expected to start this month. The new $67.1 million, 14-bed ED will have a resuscitation room, plaster/treatment room, consultation rooms and three 30-bed wards to accommodate emergency patient admissions. It is the second private emergency department for Perth, and the first north of the Swan River, though Ramsay Health Care’s 11th nationally. CEO Peter Mott said it was anticipated that the Hollywood ED would see cardiac patients, sports or surgical injury, and the elderly with medical conditions. The ED was the final stage of a $200 million five-year building project and was expected to open late in 2021.
Preserving ED capacity AIHW’s potentially preventable hospitalisations report, released last month, shows a significant number of ED presentations (1 in 15) could have been avoided if a GP had seen the patient first. State health ministers have been demanding the federal minister Greg Hunt increase funding for GP care to alleviate the ED crush. Apparently, the discussion between the ministers took place late last year when they were all gathered to discuss the five-year National Health Reform Agreement. While Mr Hunt was a no-show, health ministers laid the blame firmly at the feet of the Feds and poor Medicare funding. As Medical Forum reported a while back, research funded by the state government and conducted by UWA’s A/Prof Alistair Vickery and Dr David Whyatt demonstrated 10 | MARCH 2020
there were a significant number of potential ED diversions to GPs. Following on from that local research, the state has funded a GP urgent care pilot, which seeks to put something tangible in front of consumers. The pilot is still active and data will be coming through in the next couple of months or so.
Biobank focus With the state’s increasing involvement and development of precision medicine and the expanding field of ‘-omics’, the WA Health Translation Network (WAHTN) is forming a Biobank Steering Committee to help consolidate and coordinate the state’s numerous biobanks. As a result of a survey of its member groups, it is also looking to create a virtual biobank by using the Open Specimen software which has been successfully trialled at the Telethon Kids Institute’s Origins project. Firstly, though, it wants to create a register of the current biobanks.
ACROD parking review The WA Department of Communities will review the eligibility criteria for the ACROD parking program. The National Disability Services WA, which manages the program, welcomed the initiative which it said would ensure accessible parking bays were available for those who needed them most. Currently nearly 90,000 West Australians with a severe walking restriction have ACROD parking permits. The review will examine the potential to expand the program’s eligibility criteria to include people with guide dogs,
and investigate ways of working with private property owners, such as shopping centres, to limit the misuse of ACROD bays. NDS WA state manager Julie Waylen said while the demand for accessible bays often outstripped supply, there was a need for stronger monitoring and fines enforcement. She added NDS WA would continue to call for an increase in the number of bays as specified in the Building Code of Australia. ACROD permit holders and other people with disability are encouraged to participate in the review via access@dsc.wa.gov.au or phone 9440 2251..
Legislating safe zones The state government will legislate to establish 150m safe access zones around premises that provide abortion services in WA. The legislation would bring WA into line with all other Australian jurisdictions, apart from South Australia, whose parliament also has similar legislation currently before it. The proposed bill was preceded by a consultation process which received 4000 submissions from the public and from more than 40 public and private organisations. Seventy per cent of respondents supported the introduction of safe access zones. It is proposed the zones will operate around the clock, seven days-a-week. The legislation was expected to be introduced into parliament later this year and will set out behaviours prohibited in a safe access zone, such as harassment, intimidation and obstruction, as well as penalties for non-compliance.
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