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Ken Piaggio


Ipswich to lose last full time private psychiatrist

Article by Kate Gasteen in The Queensland Times of 17 February 2006

AS the last full time private psychiatrist in Ipswich, Dr Ken Piaggio cuts a lonely figure. Headlining the fight to keep the region’s only private mental health facility at the St Andrew’s Ipswich Private Hospital open, Dr Piaggio is passionate about protecting the rights of patients to access mental health care. However, the decision this week by St Andrew’s owners Ramsay Health Care to close the Cameron Ward has forced Dr Piaggio to assess the future of his practice. While noting he tried to limit his admissions to the Cameron Ward for his most severe cases, the day clinic that accompanied the in-patient service offered patients a valuable support.

With both services due to close on Friday, February 24, Dr Piaggio said he had lost a valuable support service. “What the closure has done is leave me with no option,” Dr Piaggio said. “So if I have someone I am managing and looking after as an outpatient, I always knew if things deteriorated I always had a ward for the patient to be admitted to.” With patients scheduled to be referred to Brisbane hospitals or the public hospital, Dr Piaggio said it was best for vulnerable patients to deal with the doctor that would care for them as an in-patient. “I have to refer them on to someone else,” he said. Booked solid through until April, he signalled the work load had reached the stage where it was too much. “I will have to change my practice,” he said. “There is no private hospital locally anymore that I can admit patients to. “Right now I am the only private full time psychiatrist here. “By June I will be going part time. “Essentially that is an extension of what is happening with the (Cameron) ward.” Dr Piaggio is pursuing a part time role within the Ipswich Integrated Mental Health Service and was grim about the prospect of another private psychiatrist coming to Ipswich to practise. For the last two years, a $55,000 establishment scholarship has been offered, first by Affinity Health (St Andrew’s former owners) and then Ramsay Health Care. Hospital chief executive officer Laurie Cahill this week said advertisements had failed to attract any interest. It was a scenario that Dr Piaggio could not see changing. “I can’t see it happening – not without a local hospital to admit to,” he said.


Created: 21 February 2006 - Last Amended: 21 February 2006 by Roger Clarke - Site Last Verified: 15 February 2009
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