Urgent Care Centre meeting community needs

Media Release – February 6th 2020

Robinvale District Health Services 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 24-hours-a-day, 7-days a week assessment and care service. RDHS Chairman Bruce Myers said last year, 1830 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 Myers 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.”

“If a patient’s issue is beyond the ‘scope of practice’ for a Registered Nurse and in the absence of a GP (VMO on-call – see below), a RIPERN trained nurse is able to provide a range of treatments. The RIPERN nurse is required to undertake an assessment of the patient prior to administering any treatment. If the nurse is not on duty or the treatment required is outside their scope of practice then the patient will need to be transferred to the Mildura Base Hospital.

Visiting Medical Officer (VMO) On-Call
Please understand that for your doctor to be able to prescribe a treatment for you at RDHS or, for them to visit you as a patient of RDHS, they must be credentialed to be a Visiting Medical Officer (VMO). This process is mandatory. The GP is responsible for initiating the application. There will be, at times local GP’s who do not seek to be a VMO at their local health service. This may be your GP. Please discuss this with your GP if you have concerns.

As a rural multi-purpose health service, we are 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 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