SA health system alarmed after day where more patients were left waiting for beds than there were beds available

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Emergency doctors are sounding the alarm over pressures on the Royal Adelaide Hospital, saying there was a day in September when there were more admitted patients in the emergency department than it has beds - in what could be an Australian first. It's a claim that's disputed by SA Health, but the Australasian College of Emergency Medicine says it has information from doctors who were working at the time.

Transcript

00:00Ramping and overcrowding at hospitals is nothing new in South Australia, but emergency doctors

00:07say the 22nd of September at the Royal Adelaide Hospital was different.

00:12For the first time in a large tertiary hospital in Australia, we think, there were more patients

00:19waiting for beds in the emergency department than there are actually beds in the emergency

00:25department.

00:26The College of Emergency Medicine says during the morning handover that day, staff were

00:30told there were 70 admitted patients in the department that only has 68 beds.

00:36SA Health disputes that, saying its records show the day's admissions peaked at 65.

00:41But it admits even at that level, the ED was well over its optimal limit.

00:47What it did is it started to constrict the space that the emergency department had to

00:51see the next patient that came through the door.

00:54The doctors and nurses that work in emergency departments are flexible and pragmatic and

00:58whenever somebody comes in with an obvious life threat, we will find a way to look after

01:02them.

01:03But whenever you've got a situation where it's not an obvious life threat, it's very frustrating

01:07for the staff.

01:08The hospital says it's been doing a lot of work to relieve pressure, including opening

01:12a new transit unit for people waiting for discharge and bringing in specialist mental health triage

01:17nurses.

01:18As soon as we knew, as an organisation, first thing in the morning we enacted our demand

01:24escalation framework, we started moving patients out of the emergency department.

01:28The hospital says there were a number of factors contributing to the issues in September, including

01:32a high number of flu cases.

01:35But both the College for Emergency Medicine and the hospital agree one of the biggest challenges

01:40is the lack of aged care beds, a problem the College says will continue to overwhelm hospitals

01:45without more investment.

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