PROMINENT Albury surgeon Roland von Marburg has quit Albury Wodonga Health after a long-running dispute over patient care.
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That means about 130 surgery cases listed with the ear, nose and throat surgeon will have to be reassessed.
Health service boss Stuart Spring said there was no guarantee all these cases would be able to proceed to surgery.
“I do confirm that Dr von Marburg made the choice himself to resign,” Dr Spring said.
Dr von Marburg said his resignation came after four years of what turned out to be fruitless talks with Albury Wodonga Health.
“We’d considered issues of patient care and where we go forward to from there,” he said.
“We have agreed to disagree on some important issues.”
Dr von Marburg said he wanted to reach a certain high level of patient care that was not possible within the parameters of the arrangement he had had with Albury Wodonga Health.
“I understand that the board is taking a different view and no doubt they feel justified in what they are doing,” he said.
“But I feel pretty strongly about it.”
Neither Dr von Marburg nor Dr Spring were willing to reveal the specific issues that led to the dispute.
Dr von Marburg was one of three ear, nose and throat specialists working with the service, the other two being Dr Gerard Fogarty and Dr Eliza Tweddle.
He will now focus more on his business, which has been expanded to include allergy-immunology and speech therapy services.
A third specialist will be immediately brought in to cover the gap caused by Dr von Marburg’s resignation for the rest of this year.
Albury Wodonga Health is also planning on recruiting another surgeon.
Dr Spring said the service could not just ask another surgeon to take on cases booked in with Dr von Marburg, who is also a specialist in head and neck oncology.
“These patients are going to have to be re-examined and it determined whether the surgery they were referred for is warranted,” he said.
Dr von Marburg said it was a difficult decision to resign.
“Although my public work is about 10 per cent of what I do, it’s become about 90 per cent of my headache,” he said.
“With any decision like this the people who lose out are the patients.”
Dr von Marburg said Albury Wodonga Health had lost about 400 years of senior clinical experience through resignations in the past four years.
“I think that’s sad and it means that the community misses out,” he said.
Dr von Marburg said he would work hard with his public patients to make sure they were looked after.
He had received support from the Australian Medical Association.