{"id":471855,"date":"2026-02-11T02:04:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T02:04:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/471855\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T02:04:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T02:04:16","slug":"limestone-coast-hospitals-staff-shortage-in-spotlight-after-former-administrators-fall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/471855\/","title":{"rendered":"Limestone Coast hospital’s staff shortage in spotlight after former administrator’s fall"},"content":{"rendered":"

Millicent man David Walshaw spent close to two decades managing the public hospitals of South Australia’s Limestone Coast region.<\/p>\n

But when he suffered a fall at his home, the ongoing struggles of the region’s health system became clear to him.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In November, Mr Walshaw fell from a ladder onto his side and, while he was in considerable pain, his wife called an ambulance to take him to hospital.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He was taken to the nearby Millicent and District Hospital and Health Service, where there was no doctor on site and he was assessed through a video consultation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

David Walshaw has been working with clinics in Millicent to attract and retain GPs. (ABC South East SA: Sam Bradbrook)<\/p>\n

It was decided he should be taken to the larger Mount Gambier and Districts Health Service for scans, but there was an ambulance shortage.<\/p>\n

“If an [ambulance] team was freed up in Mount Gambier during the night they’d come and get me but that obviously didn’t happen,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I spent the night there in considerable pain and discomfort, and the ambulance team came down first thing the next morning.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Millicent<\/p>\n

The Millicent and District Hospital serves a town of about 5,000 people. (ABC Local)<\/p>\n

“Again, the ambulance team did a great job assessing my injury, taking a full history and preparing me to go into the emergency department at Mount Gambier hospital.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now, about 10 weeks after the incident, Mr Walshaw is still feeling pain and rehabilitating an injury picked up by later scans.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘Different models’\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mr Walshaw said the care he received from the staff at both hospitals was positive and they did not deserve blame.<\/p>\n

But he said local health had changed a lot since his time in the sector.<\/p>\n

“When I first started at the Millicent hospital, there were 14 GPs in the town of 5,000 and another 5,000 on the periphery,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Man<\/p>\n

David Walshaw has praised the work of hospital and ambulance staff. (ABC South East SA: Leon Georgiou)<\/p>\n

“We did 120 births [per year] at the hospital, we did surgery, chemotherapy, renal dialysis, we did a whole range of things.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“The GPs were all proceduralists. They were GP obstetricians, surgeons or anaesthetists; everyone had a sub-specialty.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now working with the Medical Clinic Millicent to attract new GPs, Mr Walshaw said new ways of thinking were required.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He said long-running staff shortages across the region’s health sector meant the system was failing local people.<\/p>\n

\"Site<\/p>\n

Mount Gambier Hospital is the largest public health facility in regional South Australia. (ABC South East SA: Bec Whetham)<\/p>\n

“We’ve got to look at different models of care now; what worked in the past may not be what’s going to work OK in the future,” Mr Walshaw said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“What we found worked really well is the nurse practitioner model, where a nursing staff member becomes more advanced and qualified as a result of further training.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“They’re then able to do much more inside their scope of practice and trialling that in the Millicent clinic at the moment is proving to be pretty successful.”<\/p>\n

Regional plan needed<\/p>\n

Australian Medical Association (AMA) SA president Peter Subramaniam said that with a state election on the horizon, both major parties needed to present a plan to improve regional health.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“How are we going to get more specialists to be attracted to, or have a presence in regional areas?” Professor Subramaniam said.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Peter Subramaniam says a clear plan for regional healthcare is needed. (ABC News: Ashlin Blieschke)<\/p>\n

“How are we going to get those hub hospitals, like Mount Gambier, to a stage where more people from the regions can access care in the regions?\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Both parties will talk about how primary care is to do with Commonwealth funding, but none of us can sit back and watch a train crash without doing something about it.”<\/p>\n

When asked about Mr Walshaw’s situation, Limestone Coast Local Health Network (LCLHN) chief executive Emma Poland said “the health and wellbeing of our consumers is our highest priority”.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ms Poland said the South Australian Virtual Emergency Service (SAVES) was used at the Millicent hospital “for category three-to-five” presentations between 7pm and 7am.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“The rostered medical officer remains on call for all triage one and two presentations,” she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“The recently released LCLHN Clinical Services Plan 2025-2035 provides a 10-year road map and outlines that surgical services will continue at Millicent Hospital for the foreseeable future.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Millicent man David Walshaw spent close to two decades managing the public hospitals of South Australia’s Limestone Coast…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":471856,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[64,63,197174,137,500,19900,473,73057],"class_list":{"0":"post-471855","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-doctor-shortages","11":"tag-health","12":"tag-healthcare","13":"tag-hospitals","14":"tag-limestone-coast","15":"tag-staff-shortages"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471855\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/471856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}