Masada Hospital considering its options
MASADA Private Hospital's owners are considering a move to convert the iconic Balaclava medical facility into a maternity section, depriving a large section of Melbourne's Jewish community of its local general hospital.
PETER KOHN
MASADA Private Hospital’s owners are considering a move to convert the iconic Balaclava medical facility into a maternity section, depriving a large section of Melbourne’s Jewish community of its local general hospital.
A spokesperson for Ramsay Health Care, which owns Masada, confirmed to The AJN that plans to switch the hospital to a women’s health facility were under consideration. However, Masada CEO Petra Snelleman said she had no public comment to make.
The AJN understands the initiative, launched by a consortium of obstetricians and anaesthetists from Masada’s maternity wing, was not canvassed with the general medical staff.
The consortium initially offered to purchase the hospital, but the owners wanted to keep the facility, opting instead to consider the change. An obstetrics unit using rostered medical staff, rather than patients’ own obstetricians, would be based on a Queensland model.
Jewish doctors who spoke to The AJN, but asked that their names be withheld, said the move would trigger an exodus of specialists from Masada, forcing patients to find other hospitals. They have already raised their concerns with the Australian Medical Association.
Ramsay will decide whether to adopt the plan at its next board meeting on September 22.
Services that would be scrapped include general surgery, haematology, orthopaedics, pediatrics, respiratory, ear, nose and throat and dermatology.
One doctor slammed the new obstetrics concept, claiming rostered obstetricians would not provide any additional help with deliveries because every birth at the hospital already required an attending obstetrician.
The change would merely ease the burden on obstetricians by ending night call-outs, he said, and would deprive patients who wanted their own obstetrician at a delivery.
Around 30 Masada doctors met last Monday to organise a protest against the proposal, and another meeting is planned for this Monday.
The AJN understands a core group of around 20 Jewish doctors stands to lose considerable numbers of patients if the change goes ahead.
“This is a significant issue for a number of us, as we’ve placed our whole practices in Masada,” a consulting doctor said.
“If the doctors are driven out, it will mean the permanent loss of a cross-section of medical services in the area,” another doctor said.
The change would mean an end to Shabbat-observant Jews walking to Masada to visit general patients.
Local MP Michael Danby said he supported Masada remaining as it is.
“It would cause a severe loss of access to a variety of health specialists particularly for senior members of the community.”
While not a Jewish hospital, a substantial minority of patients at Masada come from within the Jewish community living in the surrounding suburbs of Caulfield and East St Kilda.
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