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"Lack of health care services in regional WA"

About: Kununurra Hospital

(as a relative),

My spouse has been having some health problems over the last couple years we've been living in a Kununurra W.A. 

We've been to GPs for a professional opinion and we're always left with the feeling of, we'd make a better diagnosis ourselves, searching on Google.

In our opinion, the level of care and experience the GPs up here provide just isn't good enough. They don't seem to know enough themselves most of the time and then we get referred to a specialist who 'might' make up here every 6 weeks. 

In my experience, the specialist themselves cancel at the last minute, leaving us to wait another 6 weeks for the next clinic, and when they do actually follow through on appointments, I believe they don't even remotely do what is needed to find a solution to my spouse's problems. Based on my own experience, their apparent lack of interest in helping their patients try to find some answers is, I feel, astonishing actually.

I believe our only solution is to try and get my spouse down to Perth where I feel there is a much better chance of a health professional taking an interest in my spouse's issues, to give them some hope in finding answers to their problems and improving their way of life.

Something needs to change for the regional towns like Kununurra and their lack of decent health care available in my opinion. 

I believe persons in the industry have a professional obligation to provide the best of care, no matter where they are in our country. Not to mention, I believe they all get compensated greatly for coming out to these towns. In my opinion, if they can't provide that level of care everywhere they go, then they really shouldn't continue working.

I think people out here deserve better care then they get if it's only going to come around every so often, for exactly that reason.

I feel it shouldn't be so easy to redirect help that people sometimes wait weeks on receiving. Some problems need to be diagnosed sooner rather than later for a good result, and I feel we are getting left to fall through the many cracks in the system. 

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Responses

Response from Keda Bond, Operations Manager, East Kimberley, WA Country Health Service 3 years ago
Keda Bond
Operations Manager, East Kimberley,
WA Country Health Service

English

Submitted on 16/11/2020 at 7:16 PM
Published on Care Opinion on 17/11/2020 at 10:47 AM


Dear TaxPayer1,

Thank you for taking the time to share your story with us and for advocating for the health and wellbeing of people living in rural and remote WA.

I am very sorry to hear that you are feeling unsupported by the local General Practitioners (GP) in Kununurra and that you are feeling disheartened by the level of care and attentiveness from the visiting specialist service.

I acknowledge that there are challenges that can sometimes complicate access to healthcare for people living in regional and remote areas. However, in collaboration with our partners and stakeholders, we are committed to ensuring that our country patients and their families receive the very best care when and where they need it.

I would like to learn more about your experience and would appreciate it if you could make contact with me so that I ascertain if we need to make improvements to the services we provide, or if we can assist and support our healthcare partners in Kununurra with feedback on their GP service provision.

My name is Keda Bond and I am the Operations Manager at Kununurra Hospital. If you are happy to, please feel free to contact me directly on 0408944305 so that I can support you and address your concerns.

Again, thank you for reaching out to us and I hope to hear from you soon.

Yours sincerely

Keda Bond

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