Noske heads PDH Board

Mr Noske was elected last Thursday and is in his sixth year on the PDH Board.

While this is the first time Mr Noske has taken on the lead role, he did act in the role, for one month, about four years ago.

The role is for 12 months but in an interesting twist Mr Noske’s current term on the Board finishes in eight months, but he said he would be applying to stay on the Board.

Mr Noske is pleased to be taking on the role and recently experienced the services at the hospital first hand.

“In September I present to A&E at 4am on a Friday with serious chest pain which resulted with me spending six days in hospital with suspected DVY (deep vein thrombosis)” Mr Noske said.

“It was good to go through the process, the A&E staffs were sensational and the staff and care I received were exemplary.

“I can say firsthand the services are great” he said.

Mr Noske said that in the next year he would expect PDH to consolidate on the good work put into broadening the delivery of medical services.

“Recently we have welcomed a new Physician and a new General Surgeon which complements the big list of visiting specialists” he said.

“And we have Active Health Portland which will open early next year”.

Mr Noske said he would be focusing on rebuilding the relationship between the local GPs and PDH.

“I would encourage people to ask their GP if they can be referred to PDH” Mr Noske said.

“In a lot of cases, for no reason, people are getting referred out of town when the same service and sometimes even the same specialists can be seen here in Portland.”

Mr Noske expects, if recruitment goes to plan, that Maternity Services at PDH will return to level two during his term as Chairman.

Currently Portland can deliver only low risk births and provide all the pre and post care of mother and baby, but these services should increase with the recruitment of more doctors specialising in anaesthetics and obstetrics.

Mr Noske said he had followed the issues surrounding Sea View House closely and said consultants Ferrier Hodgson would meet again with PDH next week, with a report expected soon after.

“In the coming two to three months we will act on the findings from the report” Mr Noske said.

STORY BY Tiana Richardson, Portland Observer