SWAN Hill patients scheduled for elective surgery on Thursday will have to wait longer.
All elective surgery at Swan Hill District Health has been cancelled on the one-off public holiday, set by the Federal Government as a National Day of Mourning for the Queen’s death.
SHDH acting chief executive Chloe Keogh said the decision was “regrettable”.
“The problem is the announcement came and we didn’t get any direction about elective surgeries,” she said.
“As you’d imagine, this involves a lot of contacting people, rescheduling, so even though they know they won’t be operated on the 22nd they will have another date that is booked.
“Our staff have gone ahead and done that. Done that in a timely manner and then literally a day later we were told we could continue on with elective surgery, by which stage staff didn’t have childcare.
“It’s really regrettable but it’s just one of those things when they spring a public holiday on you.”
Ms Keogh said every patient who was booked for surgery had been allocated a new date.
“All but one of those people were anticipating that their surgery would be rescheduled anyway,” she said.
“For us, everyone who was booked was understanding and realised that, unfortunately, the Queen has died and just acknowledge that everyone got a date in the foreseeable future that they will still have their surgery.”
Ms Keogh said the one person who was “distressed” was still given a new date, with their pre-admission process already completed.
“Even if we did run some elective surgery, we wouldn’t have been able to run a full case with the staff and different care arrangements because on the impacts of a public holiday on people’s lives.”
Emergency surgery, however, will go ahead as usual with a core group of on-call staff.
“It’s just like an Easter weekend … a four-day weekend just makes it really tough,” Ms Keogh said.
She couldn’t confirm how many patients were impacted.
“The flip side for me is even if we did surgery on that day, if it required post-operative care, they are not available on the Friday either for the grand final-eve public holiday.
“There is a whole lot of stuff that has to move, align and get sorted.
“It’s not just getting the surgery done, but it’s about recovery and ensuring the right people are in place.”
The Victorian Government confirmed in a statement Thursday would be a “normal trading day, which is consistent with the grand final eve public holiday, Boxing Day and many other public holidays”.
“Employers and employees seeking information about their rights and responsibilities regarding public holidays should seek advice from their business organisations or relevant unions,” the government said.
