Lack of debate keeps South Australians in the dark

Opinion piece by Dr Alan Down, Director of Gynaecology, Royal Adelaide Hospital

Readers of the Advertiser may be surprised at the lack of serious public debate about the proposed removal of the RAH from its present site to the other end of North Terrace. This does not mean that it is not being debated furiously in medical and nursing circles but simply that it has so far failed to reach the public domain despite its enormous significance to the health and welfare of all South Australians.

We believe that the time has now come to debate this issue in depth and in public because it is not just the movement of a hospital (at enormous public expense) that is involved but the inevitable break-up of an immensely successful Medical Centre which draws on the expertise of the University of Adelaide and UniSA, the Medical School, the Dental School , and the Institute of Medical and Veterinary Science. To these are added the Hanson Institute and Cancer Research Centre, and of course the RAH itself.

There are many hundreds of professionals of all kinds on this site interacting with each other in complex networks built up over several generations and achieving world class standards of medical care and research with many millions of dollars coming in as research grants and hundreds of publications every year. This nexus of integrated activities should only be broken up if full and open discussion has shown that it is absolutely essential and will open the way for something even better.

This discussion has not yet taken place. Such debate as we have had has been relatively superficial and has left great uncertainty among the professionals and the public about the wisdom of the proposal. Staff from the Health Authority have delivered set talks to the Medical and allied staffing recent months but in the context that the new hospital will be built irrespective of any input from outside the bureaucracy.

In the original plans for the development of the RAH, there were as many private rooms as has been planned for the new hospital. We have not heard views for or against from the staff of the Hanson Institute nor the IMVS about the planned moves as if there has been some kind of gag applied by the Government.

Furthermore it has been said that the University is in favour of the proposed new hospital to the west but in fact the staff of the Medical and Dental Schools (both teaching and academic) have not been consulted and there is considerable unrest about the future if the current integrated structure is unwisely broken down.

It is noteworthy that talented local senior administrative staff have not been appointed to the Health Authority in the last 2-3 years presumably as a ploy to stifle alternative views. No attempt has been made to integrate the Women’s and Children’s Hospital into the Central Northern Adelaide Health Authority. If the Government was not concerned about the political fall out should the WCH be relocated then surely they would have no qualms about such integration.

The majority of the Medical Staff are not interested in the party political aspects –if any. We are more interested in the relevant professional, technical, financial, human and other factors involved.

This requires a broad and deep debate which we hope the Media will promote and the Government will encourage – or at least make no attempt to stifle.