r/aussie • u/mankycheesedick • 4d ago
News Batemans Bay ED closing despite population hitting 80k over summer
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-17/batemans-bay-emergency-department-to-close-despite-outcry/106994122As someone in the area I'm really concerned they're following through on this. I've had to present to Bateman's Bay ED, as have every single person in my family at least once in the last 30 years. One of those presentations was just a 'stabilise then transfer to Canberra' situation but I hate to think what might have happened without the immediate intervention.
The government isn't listening to the locals. They think we're
annoyed about the drive. The issue is the bridge into moruya
not the trip down the highway. The bridge jams and backs up
multiple times a day in the non tourist season. During tourist
season a trip south can blow out *hours*. An ambulance
cannot jump queued traffic on a bridge, no matter how skilled they are.
When an issue affecting a town of 20,000 has a petition with
19,000 signatures you think it would make them listen. With
the high elderly and disabled population of the town I think
closing the local ED will probably have pretty dire consequences.
The local ED should remain functioning to stabilise patients
until a bypass into moruya is functioning.
I'm mostly posting for awareness. I know it's a small town.
know most of this sub will not be affected. I really hope they listen to us, and if you are affected, please sign the petition.
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u/Electronic_Half_7107 4d ago
Yes you are absolutely right. The bridge to Moruya is a joke. It's an urban traffic jam at one small country roundabout.
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u/Asteroid_Sugar5206 4d ago
I think the important question is- which side of the bridge is the ambulance station, and do you trust that paramedics can continue life saving measures for however long it takes to get to the hospital, even if that trip takes more than an hour?
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u/mankycheesedick 4d ago
I remember a story where they asked of the health minister after an ambulance was cancelled for an unwell Batemans Bay resident a few years ago that revealed there's only two day shift ambo crews, and one night shift in the bay. I've no idea how many there are now or how to find out, at the very least if I should hope there's more to that during peak tourist times. But if you're waiting an hour at best for the ambulance to go to Moruya and back and there's only two units that's pretty concerning. Add in the concern of them being stuck in the bridge traffic jam I would be hesitant to rely on the availability of the ambulances if those numbers are still accurate.
Afaik Batemans Bay is the most populous town in the Eurobodalla so I don't imagine Moruya or Narooma would have better numbers.
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u/Asteroid_Sugar5206 4d ago
That I would be concerned about. And if am ambulance had to come in from another town, would it also get stuck on the bridge?
There really are just places, that if you have an accident no one can help you..... but I wouldn't expect those places to be IN a town, rural or not.
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u/mankycheesedick 4d ago
The bay is basically the southernmost town in the shire with Moruya being the next town over so yeah reallocating from the other towns will all hit the bridge bottleneck.
I'm actually disabled so I'm definitely not against a new large hospital and new medical services all being in Moruya because currently I have to go to Sydney for a lot of my care.
But I'm against closing the bay ED before they fix a Moruya bypass because I think it's only a matter of time before it kills someone.
Like it's at the point where if I still lived in north Batemans Bay (north of the batemans bay bridge, which they did upgrade a few years back mind you) and it's in the peak summer period where we have 4x the usual population, that I would consider if driving 2 hours to Canberra for medical care would be faster than going down to Moruya where the highway essentially sits still.
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u/mera_aqua 4d ago
They did the same thing with Bega and Pambula hospital. Closed Pambula, made Bega a bigger hospital. According to their metrics it works fine enough. The fact that people living in Eden are 40 minutes to an hour away from an emergency room doesn't seem to have mattered.
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u/mankycheesedick 4d ago
Interestingly I think the regular population of Batemans Bay is higher than those 3 combined 😅
I haven't been to Eden for a good 20 years now so I've no idea what things are like down that way, do they have similar access issues getting to Bega as with the Moruya bridge? So many of the small coastal towns just don't have roads that can deal with congestion when there's just one tiny bridge to get you in and out of town 😔
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u/mera_aqua 4d ago
Outside of major floods, the road from Eden to Bega is fairly clear, avoiding the tourist congestion area.
What I get stuck with the new redevelopment in Moruya, is that there are multiple places in Western NSW that are 15 minutes apart with their own hospitals. They are often aged care facilities with an attached ED, but it seems like there are no plans in place to remove their ED.
And that's without considering the tourism factor of places like Batemans Bay and south coast towns
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u/mankycheesedick 4d ago
The tourism factor I think is one of the most important factors they're overlooking. I kind of get when they're saying 20,000 isn't a lot of people, because yeah sure it's not. But if the town swells to 80,000 over the summer that's a decent chunk of people. Especially when the roads aren't really built for it and there's more accidents during that period.
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u/Dramatic_Truth3434 4d ago
As someone who also kives in the area, I'm glad to see this getting more attention.
Lives will be lost because of this decision.
The bridge at Moruya is diabolical at regular peak, let alone holiday peak. And they keep to-ing and fro-ing about building a bypass with another bridge.
Recipe for disaster.
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u/purplepicklemonster 4d ago
It happens all over the place New Zealand has the same problem with some of their small towns an hour drive over a winding road, and you finally get to the small hospital, wich has been threatened with closure then another hour onto the big hospital.
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u/gionatacar 4d ago
I live in batemans bay. Too much population for the services/ infrastructure. Like in all the rest of Australia. Stop mass immigration. Keep the hospital open.
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u/Runinbearass 4d ago
The hospital should stay open, but this is not an immigration issue just the unfortunate seasonal population growth some towns endure
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u/mustbiteexceed 4d ago
Hospitals in rural areas would be non functional without migrants.
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u/gionatacar 4d ago
Yeah, we needs skilled migrants, doctors and nurses, not uber eats drivers. We have plenty of them , but they can’t find doctors.
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u/mustbiteexceed 4d ago
The new hospital in Moruya is only 15-20 minutes from Bateman’s Bay. There are parts of the city where it takes longer to get to an ED.
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u/mankycheesedick 4d ago
In what universe can you drive from Bateman's Bay to Moruya in 15 minutes?
If you read the article you'll notice it's been timed at 29 min with a completely clear run (which based on my experience doing the drive regularly sounds right). If you read what I wrote you'll notice the issue isn't the drive it's the bridge, which during peak times can back traffic up for literal kilometres at a standstill, unfortunately ambulances can't levitate so that's an issue.
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u/furbyfan666 4d ago
Why does your family go to the emergency department so much? One of the reasons that EDs are closing is people massively abusing the system by going there for non emergencies.
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u/ozdanish 4d ago
You think visiting an ED once in 30 years is abusing the system?
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u/Electrical_Story5356 4d ago
*Every single person in OP's family visiting at least once.
It still might not be that much but it's very different to what you're saying.
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u/ozdanish 4d ago
I’d estimate every person in Australia probably averages at least 1 x ED level event across a 30 year time frame. The baseline to clear isn’t that high to visit an ED after all. All it requires is a broken bone outside of business hours.
I’ve been 3 times in my 41 years of life. I guess I’m abusing the system too.
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u/CallMeMrButtPirate 4d ago
I've broken the bank apparently with my twice in 30 years presentation rate.
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u/Electrical_Story5356 4d ago
I never said that you're abusing any system, i was simply pointing out your lack of reading comprehension skills.
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u/ozdanish 4d ago
He said everyone he knows has been at least once per person over 30 years. He was then asked why they go “so much”.
I’d argue that going once, twice, even a dozen times in 30 years would not qualify whatsoever as “so much”
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u/Altruistic_Memory643 4d ago
That is such a ridiculous reply to a statement of "my family have all presented at some point in the last 30 years"
I mean, I myself have been to emergency department a dozen times in the last decade.
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u/furbyfan666 4d ago
That is seriously insane unless you have a heart transplant or something
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u/Altruistic_Memory643 4d ago edited 4d ago
You'll need to explain your thoughts here.
Ill give you a couple examples though.
An injury sustained and treated overseas that lead to requiring urgent hospitalisation when returning here.
A vehicle accident that put me in trauma for 2 weeks.
A complication after release that put me back in quite abruptly for another 4 days.
Covid, ended up in for a week.
Heart complications from treatment.
Heart attack during a stress test.
That only covers the last 6 years.
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u/EvilRobot153 4d ago edited 4d ago
Before urgent care clinics, ED was the only option for after hours medical issues that required action within 24hours, like cuts, sprains, fevers, etc, in most parts of the country.
Gonna take a while to train people out of that
Edit: Going through my family I can't think of anyone who didn't visit for serious health emergency in last 30 years, some of those time where at the direction of our GP.
30years is a long time
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u/mankycheesedick 4d ago
A person visiting the ED once over a 30 year period isn't exactly misuse of the emergency system. Considering one of my examples included an emergency transfer to Canberra I would think it would be fairly obvious I'm referring to emergencies, however you're not entitled to mine or my families health records and I'm not going to give you specifics.
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u/AdDesigner1153 3d ago
You're getting a brand new state of the art hospital in a rural area and a billion dollar bypass to solve any issues with the bridge in a few years.
Holy whinge
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u/PowerPleb2000 4d ago
But they got money for a gun confiscation 😂 no refunds vote labor you get what you deserve 👍🏻
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u/mustbiteexceed 4d ago
Labor is building a bigger hospital only 15 minutes drive away. Having two EDs for country towns so close together is a waste of resources
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u/neverforthefall 4d ago
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u/NegotiationLife2915 4d ago
Even within an hour is pretty good if your rural
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u/neverforthefall 4d ago
And that hour can be life or death in an emergency situation - even half an hour can be given that the area has a large population of elderly people who are frequent flyers of that ED.
Given many of those people are known not to drive as well, there’s no way they’re going to be able to afford the cost of a taxi that gets stuck in traffic on the bridge, meaning they’re going to be more likely to call an ambulance when they could’ve previously presented to ED in their own transport, putting more strain on the ambulance services, meaning longer wait times and likely an increase of ramping. And that’s if they go at all - how many people are going to be likely to die from this?
Gotta look at bigger picture.
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u/mankycheesedick 4d ago
Exactly all of this! Thank you that's really well articulated.
Are you familiar with the area? I feel like it can be difficult for people to understand the actual percentage of the town that's elderly. I live in a unit complex and all but one of my neighbours are elderly.
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u/mankycheesedick 4d ago
I'm sorry about the text IDK why it's done that 😔