McLaren Vale's 25-bed community private hospital is set to close at the end of June and Victor Harbor and South Coast residents are being warned they need to use their 18-bed private facility — or risk losing it.
With the McLaren Vale and Districts War Memorial Hospital set to close and the Keith and District Hospital transitioning to SA Health management, the Victor Harbor Private Hospital will become one of only three private community hospitals left in regional South Australia, along with Ardrossan on the Yorke Peninsula and Stirling in the Adelaide Hills.
However, Victor Harbor is facing similar challenges to those that are forcing the closure of the McLaren Vale facility.
The chair of the McLaren Vale Districts War Memorial Hospital, Chris Overland, told ABC Radio Adelaide his hospital had struggled financially for some time, with annual admissions going from 2,000 to 200 in recent years.
Mr Overland said a large part of the problem for the hospital was the lack of use of the facility by local general practitioners.
"We're now critically reliant on a handful of GPs who are still willing to provide services to patients in the hospital," he said.
Likewise, the Victor Harbor Private Hospital has also experienced a drop in admissions and overnight bed occupancy and a heavy reduction in the amount of acute surgical activity at the facility with fewer GPs providing post-operative care at the facility.
Phil Goode has been a board member of the Victor Harbor Private Hospital for 25 years and the chairperson for the past 10. He said while the Victor Harbor Private Hospital was currently in a good financial situation, the hospital needed to be better used by local GPs, visiting specialists, and residents to ensure its future.
"We are hoping not to go the same way," Mr Goode said.
Mr Goode acknowledged that the workload of GPs was also a factor in them not wanting to take on post-operative hospital care.
Pre-COVID, the hospital had an average of 85 surgical admissions per month. That number is now down to 60 to 65, which represents a loss of about $1 million in revenue over the past two and a half years.
"It's a significant sum of money," Mr Goode said.
SA Health lease yet to be renewed
He said the hospital had a good track record of investing in new equipment and had well-set-up theatres, but there was great financial pressure in keeping up with medical advances.
"A visiting urologist was trying for three years to get SA Health to fund prostate health biopsy equipment for the Southern Fleurieu community," Mr Goode said.
The private hospital undertook fundraising in conjunction with community groups, and the $142,000 equipment is now in place and available to both public and private patients.
Mr Goode said the future of the hospital was made more precarious by the absence of a signed lease with SA Health. The last lease expired in 2019 and was yet to be renewed.
While demand for its services is low, the private hospital has agreed to let the co-located 32-bed public South Coast District Hospital use five of its beds free of charge to meet the demand for public beds.
Mr Goode said while having both hospitals on the same parcel of community-owned land benefited both facilities in terms of sharing staff and equipment, the private hospital was less visible, and many new residents and GPs were not aware of the range of surgical procedures that could be done locally.
"Locals need to tell their GP, 'I don't want to be carted off to Adelaide when it can be done here,'" he said.
Mr Goode said the board would be reaching out to local GPs and undertaking advertising to try to promote the hospital facility.
The president of the Rural Doctors Association of SA, Peter Rischbieth, said the issues faced by the Victor Harbor Private Hospital were multi-factored but symptomatic of the wider problems being faced in the health sector in regional and rural areas.
Dr Rischbieth said all areas of health care in country areas, including general practice and aged care, had the same issue.
"There's not enough workforce," he said. "That's the crux of it."
