After taking over the management of Junee District Hospital a little over two months ago, Danielle Miinchow is looking to allay some of the community's concerns about the facility.
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Ms Miinchow is seeking to respond to criticisms printed in The Junee Southern Cross in May, claiming the hospital is understaffed and lacking resources.
"The ED is staffed with a mix of highly-trained registered nurses and local general practitioners who provide on-call services," she told The Junee Southern Cross.
At any given time there are two on-call nurses ready to deal with unexpected presentations, however, only a qualified doctor can admit a person to hospital.
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One of the town's two doctors will attend emergency presentations if nurses deem the patient incapable of transfer to the nearby medical centre.
But, with just two doctors to service the town's need, often patients are required to attend the Broadway Medical Centre to receive attention.
It is this situation that Junee resident John Hunter has been vocal against, having experienced several adverse occasions in the past three years.
"I broke my wrist on a Friday afternoon and went to the hospital, but I was told I'd have to walk to the medical centre and wait in line to see a doctor," he said.
"Even still, when I got to the hospital it was about 4pm, and I wasn't able to get x-rays, so they sent me to Wagga.
"About a year later, I fell and broke my shoulder. Both times I had to go to Wagga."
Suffering a heart condition and a propensity to blacking out, Mr Hunter is unable to drive.
Obviously unable to schedule his misfortunes around a bus timetable, he has commonly arrived at Wagga Base Hospital hours after the initial injury.
"The second time it happened, the doctor [at the Junee Medical Centre] got a sling to hold it all in, and I went to Wagga by train," Mr Hunter said.
"It's useless to even go to Junee [MPS] because you just end up in Wagga anyway."
Though Mr Hunter's experiences occurred years before Ms Miinchow's arrival, in retrospect she did confirm that in non-life threatening circumstances, transportation to Wagga Base Hospital will be offered via NSW Ambulance or MLHD Patient Transport services.
Within the Murrumbidgee Local Health District, Junee's MPS continues to boast as one of the largest facilities, employing a great number of local health professionals.
Including administration personnel, maintenance workers and aged care facility staff, there are 72 people on the books at the MPS.
When a patient presents to emergency out-of-hours, nurses in Junee have a direct line to the on-call team at Wagga Base Hospital.
Advice is then given over the phone to tend to the immediate needs of a patient.
Often times, the advice involves transporting the patient to Wagga for further treatment.
"The MPS has a close-knit link with Wagga Base Hospital ED via the remote medical consultation service, which provides a link to critical care specialist physicians available via phone or via a telehealth [video camera support]," Ms Miinchow said.
"We can also provide medication, either nurse-initiated or as directed by the physician in Wagga."
Additionally, the MPS has the capacity to collect common pathology, including some blood tests, with results turning around in a matter of minutes.
In a month, the MPS staff would see to 300 emergency presentations, most being treated in the chair.
Given Junee's significant ageing population, the MPS mostly caters to the needs of its long-term aged and palliative care residents.
The facility currently has 30 aged care beds, eight acute beds and one palliative room. Of each, the aged are almost always at capacity.
But Mr Hunter maintains that the services do not extend far enough to cater to the spectrum of needs in the community.
"About one-third of our population is aged pensioners. Over the [past] 12 months we've had a lot of aged [people] move into the town, we need the health coverage to reflect that," he said.
"We need staff who are more knowledgeable, able to triage or set bones or take care of strains. Anything that isn't life-threatening should be able to be dealt with in Junee.
"Small community hospitals need to be better than they are, it's not good to be shrugged off and sent away. It's not helpful for someone who is in pain [and it send the message] that everyone's too hard to deal with."