RACING against the clock
Dr Ben Walters | Emergency Specialist
For the many athletes who travelled from around the world to
compete in the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games their entire
focus was on doing whatever it is they do as fast, as far, as hard
or as precisely as they can. They would be in the spotlight. But at
the same time the whole city would be in the spotlight.
Transport systems have been built or
refined, parklands groomed, hotels
polished. But behind the scenes the
healthcare system had also been
preparing itself to shine.
Even though everything went completely
according to plan there were still a vast amount
of visitors to our city during the Games (and
hopefully more in the years to come as a result
of them). This undoubtedly increased healthcare
presentations across the board. With a healthcare
system that can run close to its capacity on any
given day of the week, considerable thought and
planning has been going on behind the scenes to
make sure as a city our health care service not
only coped but shone.
With the northern hospitals being in the centre
of the cordoned off Parklands area, all of the
Gold Coast’s other hospitals were preparing
for increased activity. Some of this preparation
is simple, for example increasing staffing
and continuing to run services that we might
otherwise have wound down. Other things have
been more complicated.
For the first time we saw all of the hospitals
coming together more formally to make sure we
could provide healthcare across the city during
the Commonwealth Games. We were trying to
look at ourselves as one “health service” for our
community rather than observing the traditional
divides. This is particularly true when we
considered our response in the case of a major
incident. Disaster Planning has always taken
place but now we are seeing more focus being
placed on how the Private Hospitals could be
called upon to help. Pindara Private Hospital with
its wide array of specialities and services would
be ready if our community needed us at any time.
Managing a major health incident whether it
is a natural disaster (flood, fire or cyclone) or
a man-made disaster (train crash or terrorist
attack) requires a coordinated response from a
number of agencies.
By its definition a major health incident will
require extraordinary resources. These resources
may come from a national, state or local
response depending on the scale of the incident
and response required.
Preparation is considered to be one of the
key steps along with prevention, the response
itself and recovery from the event. At any given
time in Australia we have national, state and
regional disaster plans. Indeed every hospital
will then have its own disaster plans. Planning
and preparation goes on behind the scenes all of
the time but it is fair to say that the Gold Coast
2018 Commonwealth Games has prompted us
as a region to review our plans and carry out
exercises to test our responses.
Representatives from the city council,
ambulance, fire and police have been meeting
with various healthcare agencies to produce plans
for coordinated responses to various scenarios.
Traditionally this was the realm of the public
sector, with responses centered around the Public
Hospitals. More recently when we are considering
the response of the City’s health service to a major
18 | Pindara Magazine ISSUE 13 | 2018