The NSW Department of Health has admitted there are issues with the Armidale Urgent Care, after multiple stories of significant difficulty accessing the service emerged.
Confusion has surrounded the service launched last month, about where it is, how to access it, and what it is used for. The promise of urgent care has not lived up to the hype for many in Armidale, who turned to the service after being unable to access their GP, but instead of getting help, they got the run-around. Daily posts on social media reveal the panic and desperation as people are turned away by the new service that was suppose to give them hope.
Every Wrong Door
Robyn turned to the new service after hurting her back, and being unable to get in to see her GP.
“It’s not like an urgent, urgent issue that I need to call the emergency department,” Robyn said.
“Or I don’t feel I should, you know, because I think emergencies are the car accidents and heart attacks and things. But I’m in a lot of pain.”
The pain was evident in Robyn’s fatigue and strained voice as she explained that she was unable to get through the day, forced to keep lying down and resting.
“So I know I need to see a doctor and I need to get X rays, CT scans or something. So when I couldn’t get into my GP and my pain was getting worse, I thought I’ll try urgent care.”
“I rang [Healthdirect] and they said, oh, you need to go see your GP. And I said, well, I can’t get in to see my GP.”
Robyn says the person she was speaking to at Healthdirect then offered to help her make an appointment with another GP in the area.
“And I said, well, can you actually do that? Because if you’re already with a GP, they won’t take you on as a new client.”
The voice on the end of the phone was in a capital city. They didn’t understand.
“They have no clue about our health system,” Robyn said.
Healthdirect was also unable to make an appointment in the Urgent Care service, as there were no appointments available. Instead they connected Robyn to the Healthdirect GPs online service, which was far from straight forward.
“You actually have to log on [to a website] to get into the queue for them to ring you,” Robyn said.
“So they send you a link and you have to log on and show your face, and you have to have a smartphone so that they can identify you.”
Have managed to navigate the technology, the GP phoned Robyn within an hour. The doctor went over everything again and then told Robyn that she needed to see her GP.
“I said, well, I can’t get into my GP.”
Robyn explained the situation again, and asked for a referral for “whatever scans you would normally do” and some pain relief. She told the doctor that the earliest appointment she could get with her GP was two weeks away, it would then be another two weeks wait to get scans, meaning that Robyn was a month away from getting treatment, and she would like to speed that process up.
The online GP said they can’t give referrals for scans, nor can they give any pain relief apart from telling people to take over the counter medications.
“So I asked ‘what was the point of all of this?'” And she said, ‘have you tried urgent care?'”
“And I’m like, are you kidding me?”
Robyn was left with nothing but being told to wait for her GP, or go to emergency or call an ambulance if it got worse or she lost feeling in her legs.
When Robyn spoke to New England Times she was at home on her farm, debilitated by pain, lying down and waiting for her GP appointment in two weeks. She still did not want to go to emergency, because she did not want to be a burden on the health system that has failed her.
“If it really gets to the point where I’m, like, I don’t know, to a certain level I’ll have to go to an emergency, but I really don’t want to do that because it’s not… I’ll just clog up the system,” she said.
“You’re meant to only go there if you need it.”
Take a dose of confusion every three hours and call again
Jane’s long-awaited GP appointment was cancelled due to her usual doctor being ill. Her condition was worsening, and pain had become a significant issue.
She remembered the news story about the new Urgent Care, so did as directed and phoned Healthdirect. Jane spoke at length to a triage nurse, who recommended that she should go to the new centre in Armidale, based at the UNE medical facilities near the hospital.
“The nurse gave me the address and the landline number in case I needed to make an appointment.”
“I phoned and discovered that there was no option for discussing Urgent Care matters on that number. I should contact Healthdirect. But, of course, I had.”
“So I went there,” Jane said.
“Big mistake. You can’t just walk in here. No, you can’t make an appointment. You have to make an appointment via Healthdirect.”
Jane tried to explain, again without success, and left confused, sleepless and in pain.
She made another call to Healthdirect, and again explains the situation. The nurse apologised; undertook the triage process again, and after checking with her supervisor, makes an appoint for Jane at the Urgent Care service… in two days time.
“I got a phone call from a staff member of UNE Health – not the urgent care clinic – cancelling my appointment due to the unavailability of doctors. This is at 1pm.”
“At 4pm I received an SMS message confirming my appointment. Undoubtedly an automated message, presumably from Healthdirect.
“It seemed a lot like rubbing salt into the wound! I was very tempted to turn up.”
A couple of days later Jane’s pain became worse. She attended Emergency at Armidale Hospital, where she was seen by a doctor and a physio and had x-rays done, and a care plan put in place.
“I would like to believe that my abysmal experience was just a one-off.”
Health admits they have a problem
New Member for Northern Tablelands Brendan Moylan may still be finding the paperclips, but he has jumped straight to work on this issue.
“It is disappointing that shortly after the Armidale Urgent Care Service opened, staff shortages reduced its operating hours,” Mr Moylan said.
“I have raised this matter directly with Hunter New England Health executives and the Minister for Health, Ryan Park.”
“I am committed to working with the Government to boost healthcare in our region, and get more GP’s and health facilities.”
A spokesperson for NSW Health said they acknowledge there have “been some challenges for the community” in accessing the new Armidale Urgent Care Service (UCS) since it opened.
“As a result of unexpected GP staffing issues, the Armidale UCS is currently operating at reduced hours,” they said.
“Hunter New England Central Coast Primary Health Network is undertaking further recruitment to the UCS, and is working to return operating hours to full capacity as soon as possible.”
“We will continue to keep the community informed as this important work progresses.”
However, the service was never operating at full capacity, with UNE Life stating when it opened the urgent care service barely a month ago that they were recruiting staff and operating on limited hours.
“We are beginning with a staged strategic rollout and may expand our hours as demand increases,” they said at the beginning of July.
Too soon, too few staff
Robyn and Jane both feel the Urgent Care clinic opened before it was ready. But they identified bigger system issues than just teething problems or a lack of doctors.
“They’ve opened it understaffed and the people who were doing all the triaging don’t understand dynamics of living in the country,” Robyn said.
“You know, if we had country people, even if the country person was from another country town, like in Victoria or something, they wouldn’t come with the assumption that you can just go to the other doctors in the road.”
“If they’re going to set up urgent care in the country, they need to educate the people who are doing all this triaging about what, what facilities and access is like for country people,” she said.
“It seems that this supposed ‘urgent care centre’ has announced its opening well before it is capable of functioning as intended, and with totally insufficient communication with the public-facing staff of Healthdirect,” Jane said.
“In retrospect, it seems that the worst aspect of my attempt to be treated at the “Urgent Care” centre was the hostile reception I received, with no acknowledgement that the appointments system was in any way dysfunctional.”
“I was spoken to as if I had done something really wrong simply by being there. I did not experience any care or any urgency.”
Robyn was most angered at the thought that her case may be counted as a successful outcome.
“I’m part of a statistic now. ‘Oh, yes, we had a successful outcome with Robyn… We saw Robyn and we put her through to a doctor.”
“No, you didn’t because the doctor did bugger all.”
“I’m not one of your success stories.”
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