{"id":60117,"date":"2025-08-10T22:50:13","date_gmt":"2025-08-10T22:50:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/60117\/"},"modified":"2025-08-10T22:50:13","modified_gmt":"2025-08-10T22:50:13","slug":"robotic-surgery-breakthrough-for-whistleblower-doctors-at-orange-hospital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/60117\/","title":{"rendered":"Robotic surgery breakthrough for whistleblower doctors at Orange Hospital"},"content":{"rendered":"

Whistleblower doctors at a major regional New South Wales hospital have secured a breakthrough after they warned of delays to cancer surgeries and screening.<\/p>\n

One of the doctors’ key concerns was whether the Orange Health Service, or other health services across the local health district (LHD), would be able to continue performing certain operations because of the lack of robotic surgical equipment.<\/p>\n

Robotic surgery is now considered by some clinicians to be standard practice for some operations, such as prostate cancer.<\/p>\n

The doctors had been asking management to lead lobbying efforts for its purchase and installation, but were knocked back.<\/p>\n

The Western NSW LHD has now changed its stance.<\/p>\n

“As part of the development of the new CSP [clinical services plan], we are also reassessing the viability of delivering robotic-assisted surgical services within the district, which includes determining the best options for that type of service,” LHD chief executive Mark Spittal said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\"Man<\/p>\n

Mark Spittal says the viability of robotic surgical services is being “reassessed”.\u00a0 (Supplied: NSW Health)<\/p>\n

A 7.30 investigation in May<\/a> revealed that urgent operations at Orange Health Service (OHS) were being downgraded to avoid breaching waiting list targets.<\/p>\n

At the time the Western NSW LHD rejected the claims and said operations were not being re-categorised to prioritise waiting lists over patient care.<\/p>\n

But the NSW Health Minister Ryan Park ordered a review and called an urgent meeting with the doctors and executives from the LHD.<\/p>\n

NSW Health secretary Susan Pearce then held talks with senior clinicians in late July.<\/p>\n

“Western NSW Local Health District is following up on a range of issues raised by staff working at Orange Health Service,” Mr Spittal said.<\/p>\n

“Our staff will be kept informed as that work progresses.”Support for robotic surgery<\/p>\n

Urological surgeon Clair Whelan, one of the doctors who raised concerns, said there had been great progress.<\/p>\n

\"Woman<\/p>\n

Clair Whelan has been advocating for robotic surgical services in western NSW.\u00a0 (ABC News: Shaun Kingma\u00a0)<\/p>\n

“We’re excited to be working with the LHD to continue to deliver gold standard surgical care,” Dr Whelan said.<\/p>\n

“Rural patients deserve the same quality care as our metropolitan counterparts, without the added burden of leaving our support networks.<\/p>\n

“The impact of robotic services to western [region patients] stretches far beyond surgical care and will ensure a healthy sustainable workforce for years to come.”<\/p>\n

The Australian Medical Association’s (AMA) NSW branch was involved in the meetings between doctors and the minister, and welcomed the LHD’s change of heart.<\/p>\n

“We think it’s fantastic that more modern services like robotic surgery can be delivered by those who are skilled in that workforce \u2026 to give the patients the care closer to home and certainly in their local area,” AMA NSW president Kathryn Austin said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

A new 10-year plan is being developed for Orange Hospital to ensure it can meet the future needs of the community.\u00a0 (ABC News: Shaun Kingma)<\/p>\n

The senior doctors had also warned the capacity of Orange Health Service <\/a>was among the reasons surgeries were being postponed.<\/p>\n

“It’s very important that we continue to make sure that NSW Health does everything to support the frontline doctors and nurses of our workforce, and investments in the workforce and the infrastructure in which they work needs to be a priority,” Dr Austin said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Hopefully small changes like this will show that that’s what they are doing.”<\/p>\n

Mr Spittal said the LHD was working to prepare a new 10-year clinical services plan for the hospital.<\/p>\n

He said it would consider whether additional beds were needed, and examine the broader health precinct to find out what was required to meet future health needs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Whistleblower doctors at a major regional New South Wales hospital have secured a breakthrough after they warned of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60118,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,39441,39445,84,392,39444,39443,39439,39440,14492,39442,39446],"class_list":["post-60117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cancer-delays","tag-dr-clair-whelan","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-mark-spittal","tag-nsw-health","tag-orange-health-service","tag-orange-hospital","tag-robotic-surgery","tag-western-new-south-wales-local-health-district","tag-whistleblowers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60117\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}