Refusal to travel will spell death | Fraser Coast News | Local News in Fraser Coast

FIX THIS NOW: Anne Maddern, a spokesperson for the Dialysis at Maryborough group, holds the 8000-signature petition.

YESTERDAY an old professional fisherman slept fitfully in his Urangan home, with what is left of his life slipping away because he has decided not to travel to Brisbane three times a week to get dialysis treatment – one of the few options open to him.

The 81-year-old man’s wife spoke to the Chronicle in the hope that by speaking out she might save the lives of others.

“My husband, who has been suffering from degrees of renal failure over a couple of years, got really sick in February, went into Hervey Bay Hospital for four days and then they said he would need to go to Brisbane for treatment three times a week.

“How can he – how can we – manage that? I am in my 70s – I wouldn’t drive in Brisbane.

“Why can’t Queensland Health give people like my husband the option of a dialysis unit at Maryborough Hospital so patients up there don’t have to travel to Hervey Bay for treatment, which would result in leaving treatment chairs vacant here?”

A petition with more than 8000 signatures will be tabled in parliament later this month – in the pursuit of getting a dialysis unit at Maryborough Hospital.

This latest health disgrace comes on the back of hundreds of pages of confidential internal documents relating to the northern cluster, the health district that covers the Fraser Coast, being handed to the Chronicle by angry Opposition health spokesperson Mark McArdle.

The documents, written through the second half of 2009, paint an alarming picture.

Senior medical staff outline an ongoing renal dialysis service and patient crisis, talking of patients cutting short dialysis sessions, staff being stressed and patients’ lives being endangered.

“Senior clinicians from the renal service within FCHA have identified that the service is at capacity,” writes northern cluster manager Beth Norton.

She then mentions the interim service being set up but qualifies that with: “This interim service is now at capacity.”

One paper says previous documents from June 2006-October 2007 discussed “the likelihood” of the Bay facility having reached maximum capacity by 2008/09 – yet in spite of this nothing was done to increase Coast facilities.

“Further documents from August 2008-November 2008 “confirmed and outlined the urgent need to consider expansion of the Hervey Bay facility”.

Again, nothing was done.

“Patients may refuse to travel longer distances to access services,” another paper says, “resulting in a withdrawal from dialysis and ultimately death.”

Yet patients have been forced to travel long distances – except when, like our fisherman, they wearily say no and wait at home to die.