News

Excited by possibilities

Feb 26, 2019

More than 4000 people admitted to St Andrew’s ED since opening.
By Lachlan McIvor QT

BURNOUT is never too far away from those who work in an emergency department.

Dr Graham Ireland has worked full-time at St Andrew’s Ipswich Private Hospital since November after moving from the Gold Coast, where he spent the past 15years working in facilities across the region.

“It’s a challenging job. You’ve got to be on your toes,” he said. “I’ve done a lot of that crash, bang, wallop stuff over the past 20years.

“Every time you come to work there’s another total chaotic scramble. When you leave, you take a deep breath and come back…..then there’s another one.”

He is one of 161 people to have started at the hospital since a major development was completed last April.

It involved the construction of Ipswich’s first private emergency department and more than 4000 people have passed through its doors since it opened.

Having relocated his wife Melissa, who is also an ED doctor, and two young children to a house just two streets away from the hospital, he said he is enjoying a much better work-life balance.

“It took an hour to get to work every day (on the Gold Coast),” he said.

While life in an emergency department is never going to be quiet, he was relishing the chance to provide that extra bit of care in his new position in a less hectic environment.

St Andrew’s ED usually assesses between 30 to 40 patients every day between its four doctors.

Dr Ireland said a private hospital in Brisbane would allow at least double that with the same number of staff.

If you want to sort them our properly, you can do it,” he said.

“None of this ‘go and see your GP”. We just do the whole lot so patients don’t present again the next day, we can just sort then our in one go. It’s quite satisfying.

“Here you can pull up a pew and say ’tell me when it all began’ because you have the time. You don’t get that in really busy hospitals.

“You’re not at their bedside for two minutes.”

The 42-year-old originally from Blackpool in the United Kingdom, said he was excited by the potential of the hospital and looked forward to more specialists arrived.

I’d like to see more services for acute illnesses. I’d like to see a 24 hour (catheterisation) lab opened,” he said.

With permission from The Queensland Times