Urgent Care Centre Meeting Community Needs
Robinvale District Health Service’s Urgent Care Centre is continuing to fulfill an important healthcare role in the Robinvale and Manangatang communities, with more than 40 patients a week presenting for treatment or assessment.
The Urgent Care Centre (UCC) is RDHS’s 24-hours-a-day, 7-days a week assessment and care service.
RDHS Chairman Quentin Norton said last year, 2384 people presented to the Urgent Care Service for a wide range of medical issues.
“At one end of the scale, the UCC treats lower-level medical issues – at the other, staff can undertake urgent medical interventions, such as resuscitation,” Mr Norton said.
“The UCC is staffed by Registered Nurses from our acute care team and they’re a fantastic team of highly-capable, highly-qualified professionals,” he said.
“Their expertise is in safely and efficiently managing the incredible range of presentations we have, around the clock, and they do an amazing job.”
Mr Norton said, though, the role of the Registered Nurses is limited by their licensing authority.
“If a patient’s issue is beyond the ‘scope of practice’ for a Registered Nurse, then we access a GP-On-Call service if it’s available, or the patient is transferred to Mildura Base Hospital,” he said.
RDHS is a rural multi-purpose health service which is funded to provide a diverse range of health, community and care services to improve the health, wellbeing and strength of the Robinvale and Manangatang communities.
“RDHS receives Government funding as a ‘multi-purpose service’, which is a special bucket of funding that allows health and aged care services to exist in small regional and remote communities which could not viably support stand-alone hospitals or aged care homes,” Mr Norton explained.
“This means we provide a mix of services, including acute and aged care, but also a whole range of community-based services that Robinvale and Manangatang need,” he said.
RDHS CEO Mara Richards said she was always happy to receive feedback about any aspect of the services.
“We know it’s simply not possible to provide every level of medical service here in Robinvale, so the needs beyond our UCC ‘scope of practice’ are met by larger regional hospitals, in our case, Mildura Base Hospital,” she said.
“That means RDHS can provide the broadest possible range of services to our local communities, while urgent medical issues receive the best-possible expertise and care.
“I’m always happy to talk to any member of the community about any concerns that come up from time-to-time, because it’s an important way for us to keep improving what we do and to ensure we’re providing the right mix of services in the most appropriate way.”
CEO Mara Richards can be contacted on (03) 5051 8101.
