An international recruitment drive has filled some specialist posts in the troubled cardiac unit at Canberra Hospital but more needs to be done, according to ACT Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith.
"We know that we've got a wait list for cardiology that we don't want to see," she said at the soon-to-be-opened heart-disease treatment unit at the new Critical Services Building at Canberra Hospital.
The unacceptable waiting time was worst for Category 2 and 3 patients (who are meant to be treated within three months and one year respectively). Patients in the most serious category - Category 1 - should be treated within a month.
"We're doing much better in relation to Category 1 and the most urgent of those appointments and procedures, but we still have a way to go in relation to Categories 2 and 3," she said.
But the unit, which is to open next month, ought to help, both Rachel Stephen-Smith, the minister, and Peter Scott, the director of cardiology at Canberra Health Services, said.
The acute cardiac care unit will increase from 19 to 28 beds and the cardiac day unit will increase from nine to 20 beds.
The new section will also bring more services closer together. It will have a better working environment, Dr Scott said. At a basic level, there would be more sunlight.
Cardiology at Canberra Hospital has been controversial since a group of cardiologists wrote to Ms Stephen-Smith a year ago to say there had been an "unacceptable and dangerous deterioration" in cardiac care.
Since then, there had been an international recruitment drive, particularly trying to lure cardiologists and other highly skilled specialists from Britain where the National Health Service is widely perceived to be in crisis.
Recruitment drives had also sought staff in other parts of Australia, often with the pitch that "Canberra is a great place to live".
The ACT government has worked with the immigration authorities to get visas sorted out swiftly.
"People will be aware that there has been some significant change in cardiology at Canberra Hospital over recent years, and we shouldn't shy away from that," the minister said.
But she added that surveys of staff morale showed a marked improvement.
Technology has also helped.
One of the most amazing new techniques, which only started in Canberra this year, is called "transcatheter aortic valve implantation".
Instead of the old open-heart surgery where the patient's rib cage was opened up in a major operation, it involves a slight slit in the leg with the new heart valve passed up internally to the heart.
"We inflate it on a balloon and basically squeeze a new valve inside your old valve and let it all return back to normal," Dr Scott said.
"And the recovery time for that is about a day, so most patients are home either the next day or within 48 hours following the implantation.
"It's normally reserved for slightly elderly, higher risk patients over the age of 75," he said, but it's increasingly being used for younger people."
Previously patients would have had to go to Sydney but now the procedure is available in Canberra.
