Cairns Hospital emergency department wait times explode

A young mum was forced to cradle her infant for hours while waiting to see a doctor during a night of ramping horror for the Cairns Hospital emergency department.

A YOUNG mum was forced to cradle her infant for hours while waiting to see a doctor during a night of ramping horror for the Cairns Hospital emergency department.

Baby Kylo, just four months old, was in pain while his mother Willow Barnes from Westcourt was relegated to public benches outside the hospital due to overcrowding in the hospital on Monday night.

Ms Barnes said she was extremely concerned when it took 45 minutes to even get a triage from nurses.

“It was a three-hour wait and they said he was the top priority. It felt like a long three hours because he hit his head,” Ms Barnes said

Willow Barnes from Westcourt with her four month old Kylo who suffered a bump to his head had to wait three hours to be seen by a doctor at Cairns Hospital ED on Monday. Picture: Andreas Nicola

“He was supposed to be assessed to see if he was conscious and stuff.

“In the end the guy I saw was really nice but he’s under the pump, he’s answering the phone while talking to me. It was really busy.

“They should have built the Edmonton Hospital.”

Sharon Daly from Smithfield said she had taken her mother into emergency early in the morning, but was impressed how they handled it despite the wait.

“I felt like even though there were a lot of people waiting, they were starting the process, bringing staff into the wait room. People felt like they were being seen.”

“It was chock-a-block, you couldn’t even get a seat in there.”

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But it wasn’t just the hospital that was busy on Monday, Kim Schneebeli from Kewarra Beach said they called an ambulance at 11.45pm on Sunday night and it arrived at 3am on Monday morning.

“The ambulance were good they rang and checked to check he hadn’t deteriorated,” she said.

“Then you get to the hospital and they sent him home cause there’s no beds. He’s got an IV cannula in and he's going to get a nurse from the hospital to come do the antibiotics at home.”

Ms Schneebeli said it was ridiculous.

“The waiting room was just ridiculous. It was crazy. There’s hardly enough seats to even be sitting there waiting. It’s a mess. The system is a mess,” she said.

“It’s not the staff, it’s the actual system.”

Together Queensland senior Vice president Dr Sandy Donald said the situation at Cairns Hospital was desperate.

“This problem is especially severe in the Emergency Department (ED) because they cannot safely deal with many of the patients presenting within a reasonable time frame because they cannot move patients out of ED,” Dr Donald said.

“Pressure on the hospital has also increased due to the inability of patients to see a GP, and due to a desperate shortage of aged care beds with appropriate clinical care available.”

Dr Donald said with the election in the coming days he would like to hear promises of increased funding.

“One senior ED doctor reports huge increases in presentations, both in number and complexity, and believes harm to patients is likely due to the inability to move patients to more appropriate areas within the hospital,” he said.

Opposition health spokeswoman Ros Bates said the frontline staff were the ones holding our hospitals together.

“The scenes at Cairns Hospital last night are further evidence of a health system in crisis and the people of Cairns deserve so much better than this,” she said.

“I really feel for the exhausted frontline staff who worked around the clock to treat patients at Cairns Hospital last night.”

A Cairns Hinterland and Hospital Health Service spokesperson said the ED has experienced unprecedented demand in recent weeks.

“There has been a significant increase in presentations across all categories in our ED, which has been exacerbated by patients presenting with respiratory illnesses such as COVID-19 and influenza – this is also impacting our workforce,” they said.

“The chronic GP shortage in our region has also contributed to additional pressure upon our ED.”

The spokesperson said there was a way to manage demand.

“We have an escalation process which enables us to shift resources across our hospital to where they are needed the most,” they said.

“The teams across the hospital work collaboratively to ensure flow is prioritised

across the campus with a focus on ED surge.”

Originally published as Cairns Hospital emergency department wait times explode