Winter school holidays are either here or coming up, depending on where in Australia you live. Maybe you’replanning a rural escape . Rural tourism is crucial for job growth and sustainability of small rural towns.
However, for rural emergency departments, school holidays are often the busiest times. No-one plans a trip to the emergency department on holidays. But if you need health care, there are often other ways of accessing it than turning up at a rural hospital.
Here’s why it’s so important to leave rural emergency departments for life-threatening illness or injuries, and some other options for seeking care. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare reports a significant shortfall of nurses and specialist doctors in rural towns compared with staffing levels in big cities. This means many small rural emergency departments only have nurses on staff, with doctors on call or consulted remotely from a larger hospital.
In a study published earlier this year, my colleagues and I discovered this dynamic was especially challenging for rural emergency nurses when critically ill patients presented. One nurse told us: We need more staff. I mean, I look at these emergency TV shows, and you see them in Kings Cross at the big hospitals there or overseas, they get a phone call [.
..] there’s a resus coming in.
Everyone’s standing around the bed with all their signs on, the airway/circulation/team leader [...
] and here, we have two people. It’s just so different. It’s ju.
