Maternity, dialysis upgrades needed at Murray Bridge hospital
A local councillor has raised the issue, and GPs and hospital board members hope to make it a prominent one at the 2026 state election.
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A push is underway to get Murray Bridge’s hospital upgraded to prepare for coming population growth.
New dialysis and maternity wards are expected to be identified as top priorities in a master plan for Murray Bridge Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital, due to be finalised in the coming months.
But local Councillor Clem Schubert, who raised the issue at a meeting last week, argued that even that might not be enough.
He called on the state government to consider building an entirely new hospital in Murray Bridge in years to come.
With an estimated 400 new houses likely to be built in the city in the next three years, and 900 more coming to the city’s west in the near future, now was the time to start a conversation, he said.
“It’s not going to happen tomorrow,” he said.
“It’s something that’s going to get kicked around a bit.
“It’s going to take a few years to get there.”
Councillors voted to raise the issue with state and federal MPs.
But Cr Fred Toogood – a board member with the Riverland Mallee Coorong Local Health Network – suggested there were higher priorities elsewhere in the region.
Of the Murray Bridge hospital’s 47 beds, he said, only about 31.7 were full on any given day.
At any rate, Cr Airlie Keen said, a new public hospital would be a huge project – one that would only attract funding if it were an election promise.
Mount Barker was getting a new hospital not just because its population was growing, but because it sat in a state electorate won in 2022 by her employer, independent MP Dan Cregan, she suggested.
The last major upgrade at the Murray Bridge hospital – the opening of a new, $7 million emergency department four years ago – was a Liberal election promise in 2018.
Cr Karen Eckermann had an alternative suggestion: what about campaigning for a private hospital in Murray Bridge?
If there were a need, could someone other than the state government fill it?
Maternity and dialysis wards are priorities, GPs say
Greg O’Brien, chair of the advisory committee which relays community ideas to hospital management, said there had been “no talk of a new hospital whatsoever” at that level.
“If the town grows by 25 per cent, you’d probably need 25% more beds and a few other things,” he said – but that could be accommodated.
The immediate need was for new maternity and dialysis wards.
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Martin Altmann, chair of Murray Bridge’s largest GP clinic, said lobbying for upgrades to those wards had been going on behind the scenes for some time.
The hospital’s staff did a fantastic job, he said, but the facilities they had to work with – particularly in the maternity ward – were not ideal.
“Murray Bridge continues to grow at a rate higher than most regional centres, and all our hospital facilities are usually running at full capacity,” he said.
“Not being in a marginal seat, though, we don’t often get a lot of promises made for our hospital.”
Long-serving local GP Peter Rischbieth, a former president of the Rural Doctors Association of SA, said a revamped maternity ward had been needed for “over 20 years”.
Even the hospital’s newest wing, the emergency department which opened in 2020, had been “a lot more busy than we anticipated”, he said.
Another need was for more staff, particularly those with the experience needed to train and supervise others.
What about permanent, salaried GPs then?
A related issue often comes up in discussions about the Murray Bridge hospital, an issue that was central to the 2018 election campaign.
Why does SA Health staff the hospital’s emergency department with GPs from a private clinic, rather than keeping its own on payroll?
A departmental spokeswoman told Murray Bridge News the same model, with private GPs on call, was used at most hospitals in country South Australia.
If a patient needed to be admitted, their treatment was free.
If not, the GP would decide whether or not a gap fee was required, just like at any private GP clinic.
While Bridge Clinic provided the emergency GP service in Murray Bridge, Dr Altmann said, it would gladly sub-contract the work out to GPs from elsewhere, including the two other local clinics.
However, to date, none of the GPs from those clinics had put their hands up.
“We’d love the doctors in the other clinics to help,” he said.
“Sometimes there’s a perception that we (at Bridge Clinic) have a monopoly … but that’s only because we’re the ones who’ve stepped up to provide those services.”
Have your say about the need for a hospital upgrade
The good news is that you can help local health authorities make the case for a hospital upgrade, or a change to the emergency GP arrangement.
The Riverland Mallee Coorong Local Health Network has just launched a survey which asks locals about their current and future health service needs.
The network’s acting CEO, Karen Hollitt, encouraged everyone in the community to have their say.
- Have your say: Complete the survey at bit.ly/ClinicalServicePlanSurvey by March 28.
