Ultrasound health row

By Ed Merrison
A FERNTREE Gully doctor has blamed chronic State Government underfunding for what he called the tragedy of hospital waiting lists.
Private practitioner Peter Lazzari said Angliss Hospital patients were waiting as long as four to six weeks for ultrasound treatment because facilities were ‘seriously deficient’ and had been for more than two years.
Dr Lazzari said only one of the hospital’s three ultrasound machines had been working recently in a letter copied to Premier Steve Bracks, health minister Bronwyn Pike, Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu and Shadow Health Minister Helen Shardey.
Dr Lazzari said disabled people were among about 40 patients sent elsewhere for treatment every week, placing a burden on those who had to travel and losing potential revenue for the hospital.
But Eastern Health spokesman Graeme Kelly called the integrity of Mr Lazzari’s claims into question, and said the matter appeared to be ‘an unfortunate political stunt’.
He said Mr Lazzari had failed to raise his concerns in a meeting with the hospital’s general manager in early September, shortly after writing the letter.
Mr Kelly also denied Eastern Health had taken two years to fix the need for ultrasound facilities.
He said it had been looking to purchase new equipment since identifying the need earlier this year and would install three state-of-the-art ultrasound machines in purpose built rooms within the next four to five weeks.
Mr Kelly blamed rising demand for services and the recent loss of an old, unreliable machine for pushing ultrasound waiting times up to four weeks, but patients in urgent need could still be treated immediately.
He firmly rejected Opposition claims that patient care had been compromised, saying it was “completely inappropriate to suggest otherwise, creating fear in patients and the wider community”.
A spokesman for the health minister accused Dr Lazzari of scaremongering and denied claims of State Government underfunding, saying it had increased the Eastern Health budget by 95 per cent since 1999.
But Dr Lazzari did not back down, accusing the Government of betraying its responsibility to the community at large by setting impossible budget targets for hospitals.
“The waiting lists are a tragedy and a direct consequence of the government’s chronic underfunding of the hospitals,” he said.