Brokenhill Hospital

Broken Hill Hospital

Unit Services

The services offered in Broken Hill Health Service include Ventilator and non-ventilator respiratory support, trauma, high dependency and General Intensive care services as well as Coronary Care Services

Broken Hill Health Service has a combined Intensive Care Unit/ Coronary Care Unit, which has 5 beds. 3 in single rooms and the remaining 2 in a large curtained bays. Although all the beds are interchangeable Coronary Care Patients are commonly in the single rooms where as the Curtained beds are used for High Dependency/ Intensive care patients due to the extra space available.

All our beds have a full range of monitoring equipment that feed back to a central monitoring unit at the nurses’ station. Standard patient monitoring includes Electrocardiograph (heart tracing, rate and rhythm), blood pressure, Respiratory Rate and oxygen saturation. More complex monitoring is always available for patient needs including Ultrasound Cardiac Output Monitoring

We can care for a wide range of clients in our unit including patients that have unstable angina to having a myocardial infarction (heart attack). We also care for patients that need short-term ventilation and breathing support on a ventilator or if they are still breathing for themselves we have a CPAP machine to assist their breathing.

Patients that require more specialised care such as young children or extended ventilation are transferred to one of the tertiary care hospitals in Adelaide, South Australia by the Royal Flying Doctor Service.

Staffing

Nursing: -The unit has two registered nurse rostered on at all times, although depending on the number of patients and how sick the patients are, the junior nurse may be utilised elsewhere in the hospital, with assistance always at hand from the surgical ward which the unit is connected too. If acutely sick or ventilated patients are in the Unit these patient have one nurse to two patients or in the event of a ventilated one nurse to one patient. Within the unit nursing staff are a number of Clinical Nurse Specialists, who provide advanced nursing skills and specialists nursing services such as Cardiac and Pulmonary Rehabilitation Programs.

Doctors: -Medical care is provided by the Physician or Consultant Surgeon and their senior team members, depending on the patients presenting condition. The Anaesthetists provide support services in the more complex patient, or taking on full care if the patient is ventilated.

Allied Services: -A range of allied staff are available to provide support when caring for patients including Physiotherapist, Occupational Therapist, Dietician and pharmacist to support the care of patients throughout the working day. To compliment our staff we also have access to Aboriginal Liaison Officers for support of the local indigenous community whilst in hospital.

How To Get To Broken Hill Hospital

A map of the hospital'slocation is below. A more detailed map can be found at the Whereis Online WebSite.