The spotlight needs to be shone brightly on our hospital and when we say this we are not casting aspersions on the overworked staff, who are doing their best in challenging circumstances with insufficient resources.

Mrs Phillips was particularly concerned about the long wait endured by a patient who had fronted the ED with a bleeding bowel and had to wait 24 hours before a bed was found. Even more concerning was the weeklong wait for surgery to address the problem.

This would be bad enough if an isolated incident but we are hearing too many similar stories from both patients and medical staff.

The explanation of the ED's problems offered by South Coast MP Shelley Hancock that the ED had suffered a spike in demand because of the flu and holiday seasons was unconvincing. For a start, our holiday season is, we're told, growing beyond the normal summer months. As a community, we have every right to expect our hospital to meet the growing demand.

Assurances the hospital upgrade will address these issues is cold comfort for those patients who need attention now. The upgrade is at least five years away and there is no guarantee the staff needed to work in the new improved hospital will be forthcoming. For many years the local health district has pointed to the difficulty of attracting surgeons and specialists to the region.

Add to this the referral of patients, including expecting mothers, to Nowra and the strain just continues to intensify.

It's impacting all the way up the line, with a key part of Shoalhaven Hospital's winter strategy being to transfer patients further north to Shellharbour Hospital.

The health district has also flagged employing doctors to work solely in the emergency department, which might see faster treatment of patients however, if there are not enough beds in the hospital this is really just a triage Band-Aid.

At the end of the day, we need more funding all the way from Canberra and we back Mrs Phillips's call for it.