Mayne Health to service Victoria

Mayne Health has been identified as the preferred tenderer to provide health services to the Australian Defence Force in Victoria.

Contract negotiations have begun and are necessary to ensure the best possible outcome.

Speaking recently on the length of time taken to negotiate a contract for health services in Victoria, Director-General Defence Health Service (DGDHS), AIRCDRE Tony Austin said, “It is a matter of making sure that the stakeholders and the base commanders are happy with the level of service that is proposed through the contract: scoping of the total service that will be offered by the contractor [and] ensuring that [the] service will adequately meet the needs of the base.”

The delivery of the world’s best practice health care and service and the duty of care owed to ADF personnel are paramount to the Defence Health Service (DHS).

However, in an environment where the pool from which to draw professional and highly trained Defence health personnel is diminishing, difficult decisions need to be made and reassessment of priorities are often required.

AIRCDRE Austin said, “One of my problems is that, where I have a very small number of uniformed providers on a facility, it becomes very difficult to release them for military focused training.”

“I can give an example of a doctor who may be working in a garrison situation, providing primary health care as a GP, but whose deployment role may be to run a resuscitation facility where they are dealing with multi-trauma victims.”

“Clearly there is a skill mismatch between what they are doing in peacetime and what I expect of them in war.

“Bringing those people together into a smaller number of larger ADF health facilities actually facilitates their training and my ability to release them into the civilian sector to achieve the skills I want of them.”

Defence Health Service, as a direct contributor to ADF operational capability, has an obligation to ensure all its personnel have the necessary skills and training to ensure its personnel develop and maintain individual readiness.

This experience and exposure cannot be obtained by ADF health personnel through their general day to day clinical and medical practices.

“As a consequence, we have developed strategic alliances with certain civilian health facilities where I can place doctors, nurses and medics to get those skills.

“It is very difficult, if not impossible, for me to do that when I have such a small number of people spread across a large number of bases.”

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