The closure of the Queensland border to NSW residents is putting local lives at risk, according to local doctor Chris Ingall.

Dr Ingall is a pediatrician and an executive on the Lismore Base Hospital’s Medical Staff Council.

Dr Ingall said the closure of the border has impacted on the ability of medical staff in Queensland to travel to work in Lismore – and it has also stopped people who need care from being able to travel to their doctors over the border. 

He said the mandatory quarantine of 14 days for someone returning to Queensland after being in NSW is stopping medical professionals from coming to work in Lismore - and creating shortages of medical staff. 

Read more news: Border bubble clarity arrives for patients seeking Qld medical services

Border bubble

Lismore is not considered to be inside the Queensland/NSW border bubble, while nearby Kyogle is. 

Dr Ingall believes that the border bubble should be moved south of the Northern NSW Local Health District to allow medical staff and patients to access the medical services and care they need in Brisbane and the Gold Coast.

“I want the government to realise its action in closing the border has an enormous effect on our local health district,” he said.

“We have more than 100 medical staff who live north of the border who can’t get to work here every week. 

“We are in a situation now where we are worried about the specialist care of our patients.

“Patients with significant health issues no longer have access to the doctors who know them.”

Dr Ingall said while local staff and medical administration are doing a “wonderful job” of plugging holes and mitigating risks, the hospital is still “scrambling”.

“We are asking local people to step up and do more,” he said. “We are trying to get the cardiac services working 24/7. If someone has a heart attack and needs a stent, we need to be there for them.”

No room

While people inside the border bubble can enter Queensland for specialist health care, those entering from beyond the border bubble will have to go into government-provided quarantine for 14 days, at their own cost – unless they prove financial hardship and apply to have the fees waived.

“They are not letting us though without a valid reason - unless you are being choppered out,” Dr Ingall said. 

“We are being told to look to medical services in Newcastle and Sydney instead – but they have no room there for us northerners.

No reason 

“I’m bewildered by the Government’s decision. There is no medical reason for the exclusion of our area because we have no community transmission of Covid in the Northern Rivers.

“Lismore is actually further from Sydney than Bourke is – it’s natural we look north.

“If we took the border bubble to south of Grafton, it would go a long way to mitigating the effect of closures medically and the risk it creates.

“A woman in labour at 30 weeks has a long trip to make it to Newcastle if there is a problem – there are risks when on a very long flight to Newcastle.

“I want them to rethink what they are doing. It hasn’t been well thought through.”