Boost for emergency departments

AMA President, Dr Andrew Pesce, said today that Labor’s emergency department package is a welcome boost to the pressured and overworked emergency departments in our public hospitals.

Dr Pesce said the new investment will increase the medical and nursing resources in emergency departments and provide a modest number of additional training opportunities in this area of medical workforce shortage for the additional cohort of medical students who are graduating from medical schools over the next few years.

“Emergency departments are at the frontline of public hospital services,” Dr Pesce said.

“Providing more medical professionals who are trained specifically in emergency medicine will help improve access to public hospital emergency care.

“The AMA also welcomes the additional funding to train more nurses in emergency departments.

“It will be important to ensure that these nurses and nurse practitioners work collaboratively with doctors in the emergency department to ensure high standards of care are maintained for patients.

“For this investment to be truly effective, more resources – including additional beds – will be needed in other parts of our public hospitals.

“These additional resources would ensure that patients who need to be admitted to hospital from the emergency department are able to do so in a timely fashion.

“It is important to move patients on from the emergency department when safe and appropriate in order to improve access for other patients into the emergency department,” Dr Pesce said.