Bathurst Hospital receives international recognition for fight against deadly stroke

crop_originalImage creditkeyboard_arrow_up

The Angels Initiative, a partnership between the World Stroke Organization, European Stroke Organisation, and Boehringer Ingelheim, aims to optimise the standard of treatment in stroke centres worldwide and improve patient outcomes by setting global benchmarks for best practice stroke care.

Bathurst Hospital Stroke Care Co-ordinator Fiona Ryan said achieving WSO Gold Status was a great honour and testament to a team effort to enhance stroke care in the local area. “Stroke is a time-critical medical emergency where blood supply to the brain is interrupted or reduced,” Ms Ryan said.

“With each minute that goes by, more brain cells can be lost, and the risk of disability and death increases.

“Acting swiftly on the signs of stroke and implementing best practice care requires coordination between ambulance, emergency department, radiology, and stroke unit staff,” she said.

Bathurst Hospital treats approximately 70 strokes each year. Training, protocols, and the performance of the hospital’s stroke unit were assessed as part of the WSO Angels Awards. For WSO Gold Status, this includes a target of restoring blood-flow to the brain to more than 50% of eligible patients within 60 minutes of their hospital arrival.

“Ensuring appropriate patients receive clot-busting therapy within 60 minutes of arriving at the hospital door is the gold standard and means that more people will survive and live well after stroke,” Ms Ryan said.

In regional Australia, rates of stroke are higher, and health systems must contend with the challenge of providing access to treatment and care over significant distances. People living in regional Australia are 17 per cent more likely to suffer a stroke than those living in metropolitan areas.

To achieve WSO Gold Status, a hospital must demonstrate a range of outcomes, including optimum time to treatment, coordinated care, appropriate scans and screening, and ensuring patients are discharged from hospital on medications to minimise the risk of further stroke.

The Angels Initiative Lead in Australia, Kim Malkin, said every step toward improving care and outcomes for stroke patients was worth celebrating, as there were approximately 45,785 stroke events across Australia each year – around 125 every day.

“Every hospital that achieves WSO Angels Gold Status should be justifiably proud, as should the communities they serve,” she said.

Achieving WSO Gold Status is not possible without the incredible efforts of onsite staff; however, data and technology play a vital role in modern stroke care.

Bathurst Health Service General Manager Jo Holden said “We are incredibly proud of our stroke team for achieving the WSO Angels Gold Status Award. This recognition reflects their outstanding commitment to providing world-class, timely and compassionate care for our community. It is a testament to the skill, dedication and teamwork of our clinicians, and reinforces that people in Bathurst and across our region can have confidence they are receiving the highest standard of stroke treatment close to home.

As a Telestroke Service site, Bathurst Hospital has 24/7 access to lifesaving stroke diagnosis and treatment by connecting local doctors to specialist stroke physicians via video consultation in the emergency department.

________________________________________
About Stroke in Australia:
•    One stroke occurs every 11 minutes in Australia
•    Close to half a million survivors of stroke are currently living in Australia
•    125,000 years of healthy life were lost due to stroke in 2024
•    The economic cost of stroke in 2023 was over $15.7 billion over a lifetime
•    Improving the rate of uncontrolled hypertension could save $315 million annually
•    24% of strokes occur in Australians aged 18-54 years
________________________________________