ERDF 317: Upgrading of Services at Gozo General Hospital

This project involved the upgrading of services at Gozo General Hospital through the introduction of new equipment that provides:• Bringing the service level at par with today’s technology and that of Mater Dei Hospital • Introducing new services• Ensuring adequate backup for emergencies given the unique double insularity of Gozo and• Avoiding the decrease in the current levels of service provision."

The project’s main objective is the upgrading of services at GGH through the procurement of new equipment that will allow for:1. Bringing the service level at par with today’s technology and that of Mater Dei Hospital – state of the art, modern and energy efficient equipment that is found in most hospitals today throughout the EU including in Malta.2. Introducing new services to make the service provision in Gozo as comprehensive as possible maximising the output of the available expertise thus mitigating the need for referral of Gozo residents to Malta. The new services include vascular surgery, laparoscopic (minimally invasive) surgery, laparoscopic gynaecological surgery, ultrasound and X-ray guided interventions, colorectal cancer screening.3. Ensuring adequate backup for emergencies or having full set of equipment to handle more serious emergencies e.g. having an adequate number of anaesthetic machines both as immediate back-up in case of failure of one of the current machines during operations and also to cope with emergency requirement in case of multiple trauma admissions, or availability of a capnometer for measurement of blood gases especially carbon dioxide in emergencies involving resuscitation of children in cases of drowning, respiratory failure, bronchiolitis, severe asthma and chest infections.4. Avoiding the decrease in the current levels of service provision due to deterioration of equipment since recurrent repairs take items of equipment out of service for substantial periods of time, incurring significant costs and repeatedly effecting the availability of that service until it is totally withdrawn. 5. Benefiting from efficiency gains especially in patient throughput and nursing time. This project will enable patients to be operated over a shorter period of time, more patients to be operated on a single operating list and for patients to have a shorter length of stay. This in turn would release more beds to do more operations/procedures. The equipment meant for facilitating patient recovery, monitoring, transfer and handling would positively affect efficiency and ease of nursing care, increasing FTE’s to allow nursing and patient support staff cope more effectively with increasing patient turnover with the current staff complement. Rapid seamless recovery and rehabilitation of patients also shortens time away from work.6. All these factors will together contribute to a broader spectrum of healthcare services that are safer, reliable and more efficient and available in Gozo. This would be less stressful to the patients and increase the possibility of support from their relatives most significantly after more serious, complex operations and emergencies and facilitate more rapid rehabilitation and social re-integration.

This project had to achieve the following results by 2015:• The number of surgeries in the theatre will increase by 10% unless the proportion of major and complex major surgeries increase to the extent that available theatre time is taken up by them.• The number of endoscopy procedures will increase by around 10%.• Around 120 patients will undergo Laparoscopic Surgery.• More lives saved through earlier detection of colorectal cancer. It is estimated that around 2 lives can be saved and 10 cases of cancer can be avoided by early detection.• It is expected that patients travelling to Malta for surgery and endoscopies will not exceed 2011 figures (1397 patients).• It is expected that the number of patients transferred to Malta by Ambulance or Helicopter for general surgical emergencies will be reduced. This depends on the type of emergency and is difficult to estimate but an average of 5% decrease from 2011 is expected.• New register for Colorectal Cancer Screening and US guided interventions introduced. • Vascular surgeries can be done at GGH and statistics can be captured from the Operation Register already available. It is estimated that at least 45 patients will undergo vascular surgeries.• Over 50 patients who used to undergo X-ray and US Guided interventions in Malta will be able to undergo such interventions in Gozo, so long as the post for consultant radiologist is filled.