Jos Gielen says Yarra Valley residents need essential services that are located close to accessible transport.By Kath Gannaway
A YARRA Junction man awaiting dialysis has warned some patients could be stranded at Maroondah Hospital.
But the Metropolitan Ambulance Service has moved to assure him and other dialysis patients it transports to the hospital that they will be looked after – no matter what time of the day they receive their treatment.
The State Government is under fire from dialysis patients and carers in Yarra Ranges after announcing that a long-awaited haemodialysis centre will be located at the hospital in East Ringwood, rather than at the new Super Clinic in Lilydale.
The Government had earlier said dialysis services would be provided at the Super Clinic.
Mr Jos Gielen currently receives treatment for a renal condition at Monash Hospital .
He said he is transported by the MAS clinic car, but it does not operate after 4.30pm.
Mr Gielen said the issue of transport was vital to patients in the Yarra Valley who don’t have access to public transport.
“Dialysis can take four or five hours and if you get an afternoon session the clinic car is off duty by the time you get out,” he told the Mail.
Mr Gielen said he was not reassured by comments from MAS spokesman James Howe that a stretcher ambulance is, and would be in the future, available after hours for patients who had been transported to the hospital in a clinic car.
“I was stuck at the Eye and Ear Hospital nine months ago after I was taken there by a clinic car,” he said.
“When it came to going home I was waiting there from 5pm until 11pm to be taken home by a car from Essendon,” he said.
“They are not going to be transporting someone who is capable of walking, but to get home from Maroondah could take hours and means catching two buses and a train.
“At least from Lilydale you can get a bus.”
Healesville woman Beverley Schmolling, whose husband Ken receives dialysis treatment, backed Mr Gielen’s concerns.
“If treatment is not finished by 4.30pm the clinic car can’t pick you up and you have to find your way home,” she said.
“That’s what happens. You can’t schedule (treatments to suit ambulance hours) because we have 30 people in the shire who require dialysis and there are more being diagnosed right now who will be using those services very soon.”
Mr Howe said the stretcher ambulance was a non-emergency service which was free to holders of a health care card and ambulance service members.
“The service is there for anyone receiving hospital treatment out of hours and has been in the past,” he said.
