PAEDIATRIC beds in Werribee Mercy Hospital’s short-stay unit remain closed more than a year after the facility was opened.
The 10-bed suite was opened by Health Minister David Davis in May last year to reduce emergency department waiting times and to provide beds for patients requiring up to 24 hours of inpatient care.
The unit has dedicated adult and paediatric areas but only the adult beds are in use.
Altona MP Jill Hennessy said her office had received many complaints about the other beds being closed.
She called on the state government to provide funding to ensure the beds were opened. “I understand that the aim of this facility was to improve capacity and patient flow and reduce emergency department waiting times,” she said.
“There is clearly an urgent need to increase the health funding so that all of these greatly needed short-stay beds can be made fully operational.”
Ms Hennessy said the closed beds were just one example of the impact a reduced health budget was having on the western suburbs.
Wyndham mayor Kim McAliney said she had been told by patients and hospital staff that only five or six of the beds were opened.
She said all 10 beds needed to be open because the emergency department was struggling to keep up with demand and there was insufficient paediatric care in Wyndham.
But Mercy’s executive director Linda Mellors said the paediatric beds were never meant to be opened immediately.
“When [the short-stay unit] was built in March 2011 the infrastructure for additional paediatric short-stay beds – which will require additional paediatricians and paediatric registrars – was included to cater for the region’s future population growth.”
Ms Mellors said the unit was operating as expected and all the adult short-beds were being used.
She said the unit treated about 180 patients per month.
