THE release of the latest positive financial figures from the Western Local Health District which incorporates Orange Health Service is a welcome change from the past when the district inevitably came in over budget year after year, and many suppliers found themselves waiting a long time to be paid for everything from syringes to surgical gloves or fruit and vegetables.
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Behind the change for the last financial reporting year, has been an intensive collaborative effort by management and staff to look at ways of delivering quality healthcare to a diverse region that encompasses 30 rural hospitals including the major referral hospitals of Dubbo, Orange and Bathurst and at the same time containing costs.
Working with a budget of $900 million and a staff of over 7000 it is indeed a challenge many would not relish.
Orange as the major trauma referral hospital for the region with the largest concentration of specialists, has perhaps the biggest challenge of all the hospitals in the region to come in on budget.
While population growth in the region has been minimal over the last five years at 2 per cent, the challenge for the managers in the region in the future will be the area of largest growth in population - 65 years and over.
With that growth in required healthcare comes more complex problems requiring community support services if a patient is released, and also minimising stays in hospital before transition to a nursing home depending on the availability of beds.
At the other end of the scale community expectations on the delivery of a free health system for all, providing more and more complex procedures to save lives and improve the quality of life, will be a major challenge as healthcare providers across the state struggle to work within budgets as a greater slice of the taxpayer funded pie will need to be allocated to health.