Mansfield District Hospital

Accident & Emergency

When should I go to Accident & Emergency?

If you had been involved in an accident and have been injured or are suffering from an acute episode, you should come to the accident and emergency department.

If you are unsure if you should attend, please telephone your local doctor in the first instance and the hospital in the second instance for advice.

Why do I get a bill from the doctor?

The accident and emergency department is staffed by local GPs, and you will incur a cost for being seen by a doctor. You will also incur a cost if you require additional tests, such as x-rays, and will be billed directly by the local medical clinics. People suffering financial hardship can discuss payment arrangements with the doctor. A schedule of fees will be given to you on arrival in the department before the doctor is notified of your presentation. Please note that you may not necessarily be seen by a doctor if it is not an emergency and may be asked to make an appointment at your local medical clinic the next working day.

Why do I not always see a doctor when I go to the accident and emergency department?

People are prioritised according to the severity of their illness or injury. Unless it is a life-threatening emergency or an urgent case, you may not see a doctor. The doctor may instruct hospital staff to ask you to make an appointment at the medical clinic the next working day if your condition is considered to be non-urgent.

Will I be charged for an ambulance if I am transferred to another hospital from the accident and emergency department?

Yes, being an unfunded service, you will be charged by Rural Ambulance Victoria if transferred from the emergency department. It is important that you are an ambulance subscriber to cover this cost.

Will the hospital supply me with medications if I run out of a script?

No, the hospital is not in a position to fill scripts. There is always a local pharmacy open seven days a week to fulfil this requirement (limited hours on weekends).

Why do I have to wait so long to see a doctor?

We have audited our waiting times and found that the average waiting time in the emergency department is 40 minutes. Being a small hospital, our doctors are often busy in the operating theatre, seeing patients on the wards or, during the day, conducting their clinics. If it is urgent, a doctor will be there to see you within a very short space of time.

A Profile of our Accident and Emergency Department

This past 12 months has seen a lot of change in the department using the firm foundation of the preceding years to build on.

We have input from nursing and medical staff to produce an environment that is conducive to improved patient care and working conditions. With 2,300 presentations to the department over the year, almost 25% were not seen by the on-call doctor and these patients were managed by nursing staff with occasional phone advice from the on-call doctor when required.

Around 65% of our accident and emergency presentations are locals. Of these patients around 50% were general medical consults, 10% trauma from a mixture of motor vehicle, motor bike and horse related accidents and 5% were cardiac. We admit around 12.5% and transfer 8% of our accident and emergency patients to other hospitals for more intensive treatment.

During the bushfires over summer we were able to provide support to the acutely injured and the many who were exhausted both physically and emotionally.

Ongoing education has been invaluable and has included a session using a computerized mannequin to simulate real life situations. Nursing staff have continued to attend the First Line Emergency Care course run by the Hume Region Nurse Educators Group and we have more staff qualified in Advanced Life Support as a result. Our in house education continues with our annual snakebite and CPR sessions, nursing staff sharing their skills, familiarization with equipment, and sessions run with the assistance from our local doctors to help fine tune our response when the real emergencies come through the door.

With the new ISTAT machine we are now able to do basic pathology on site for situations where results are needed more urgently.

We have a period of change ahead but if we continue to work together as a community supporting each other and understanding the importance of maintaining this vital facility we will reap a very worthwhile reward.

Simulator Assists in Enhancing Emergency Skills

In June this year, we had some very interesting patients in our A&E department!

Firstly we had someone with a snakebite, then a young man had come off his bike and sustained multiple injuries, then someone had a cardiac arrest! Happily all survived, thanks to the great team of medical and nursing staff we have here at Mansfield District Hospital.

This was part of a scenario based training day that consisted of three scenarios and was facilitated by Dr. Andrew Houghton and Jennifer Keast from the Simulation & Skills Laboratory at Melbourne University at Shepparton, who enacted the scenarios using a computerised patient model.

Three teams of medical and nursing staff responded to each scenario and later all participated in a debrief and analysis of how we could better respond to such real life situations in our own department.

Feedback from the presenters was very positive, as was the feedback received from the 12 nursing and 8 medical staff who attended the day; all cited that they had gained skills and confidence and a great sense of teamwork.