Ms CHARISHMA KALIYANDA (Liverpool) (19:45): Liverpool is home to one of the largest hospitals in the Southern Hemisphere, Liverpool Hospital. It serves as a quaternary referral hospital for the entire South Western Sydney Local Health District [LHD], which covers seven local government areas: Camden, Campbelltown, Canterbury-Bankstown, Fairfield, Liverpool, Wingecarribee and Wollondilly. The district is the most populous in Greater Sydney, with more than 1.2 million residents. If growth in our region continues as projected, our local health district will have a larger population than the entire city of Adelaide. In addition, Liverpool is the only formally and unconditionally verified level one adult trauma centre in Sydney and is also a specialised brain injury centre that takes on a large number of trauma patients from across the State.
In 2018 WESTIR Ltd published the firstCondition Critical report, commissioned by the Liverpool Hospital Medical Staff Council. It outlined Liverpool and south-western Sydney's healthcare needs and capacity. Since that report's release, our region has continued to experience exponential growth and change, often without the commensurate resources. Recently, the Medical Staff Council commissioned an updated report to develop an up‑to‑date picture of the strengths and challenges facing Liverpool Hospital and the community it serves,Condition Critical 2024.
The report makes several key findings. Central to those is that the funding in our system remains inequitable. South Western Sydney LHD recorded one of the lowest values for annualised expense budgeted per resident—almost $1,000 per resident lower than the Sydney LHD. That is especially disappointing given that the socio‑economic and demographic profile of our region indicates a real need for increased and more specific resources to respond to the sometimes complex and compounding factors that affect our residents. Additionally, there are few alternatives to inpatient and outpatient care outside the public hospital system in south‑west Sydney compared with other LHDs. We have the lowest rate of GPs and registered medical officers of all Greater Sydney LHDs.
The report depicts the depth of health inequity experienced by the south‑western Sydney community. I recently met with representatives from Liverpool Hospital to discuss the reality on the front line for our healthcare workers. The common thread between the many specialties across the hospital is that their services are under-resourced to breaking point. Take Liverpool Hospital's emergency department [ED]. Access to CT scanners is a significant issue due to a lack of staffing resources, especially out of hours. Compared with other hospitals, that is a significant risk for Liverpool ED and contributes to long waiting times for patients and processing times for results of scans.
For new mothers in our region, who deal with the stress of the neonatal intensive care unit, the lack of NICU beds at Liverpool means far too many from south-western Sydney are made to travel daily to Royal North Shore Hospital, the Royal Hospital for Women and sometimes even as far as John Hunter in Newcastle to see their critically ill babies. The impact of long travel times and cost can further compound a traumatic experience. For renal patients, there simply are not enough dialysis chairs for the LHD. That results in the district having to reduce haemodialysis for patients from the recommended three times per week to twice a week. In addition, 72 residents of the district currently complete their dialysis treatment outside. In a region where chronic kidney disease is on the rise, and that will hopefully introduce a renal transplant service soon, we must ensure continuity of care rather than the current situation.
There are numerous other examples where, due to funding constraints and the historic under-resourcing of our community, we are not afforded the gold standard of care that exists in other districts. The last decade in particular put immense pressure on our frontline health workers to fight an uphill battle to deliver the best possible care for our community against a government that did not care about south-west Sydney. I genuinely take my hat off to those workers for their hard work. The impact on our hospital workers is compounded by the lack of investment in community or preventative health care to make the biggest difference to people before they require acute care. Those issues cannot be fixed overnight.
However, I am overwhelmingly optimistic that the Minns Labor Government can meet the challenges it faces to deliver for the people of south-west Sydney, and the healthcare workers who do their best to care for them in a health system that is under extreme pressure. I know that this optimism is shared by many staff throughout the district, and I look forward to working with them to make sure that they have the resources and tools they need to deliver high quality care for the residents of south-west Sydney—just like the oath they take when they start out as healthcare professionals.
