Another day, more hospital overcrowding at the Lyell McEwin emergency department

Pictures of a packed Lyell McEwin Hospital emergency department have emerged, highlighting yet more chronic overcrowding in metro hospitals.

“Shocking” photographs showing overcrowding in the Lyell McEwin Hospital’s emergency department have emerged after a patient took some pictures of the packed ED while waiting 10 hours to be seen.

The Opposition released the pictures on Wednesday, saying they were taken by a middle-aged northern suburbs man at the Lyell McEwin Hospital on Tuesday evening.

They said the man reported that there were only two doctors covering the ED on the night.

The photographs shows a packed waiting room and a line-up of people waiting to be triaged.

The state government says Covid-19 protocols, delayed care and increasingly complex cases are to blame and ramping and long wait times for ambulances is a nationwide problem.

Labor Leader Peter Malinauskas described the pictures as “shocking”.

“South Australia at the moment is experiencing less presentations to our emergency departments than what we saw (prior to) the pandemic, yet the hospital system is in complete crisis,” he said.

“It’s now time for Steven Marshall to take his head out of the sand and realise that a $660 million investment in a basketball stadium is quite simply the wrong priority.”

The line-up in the Lyell McEwin Hospital's emergency department on Tuesday evening. Picture: Supplied

Opposition health spokesman Chris Picton said the situation was a consequence of funding cuts to the ambulance service, health worker redundancies and delayed upgrades to emergency departments.

“We see every single day the impact that ramping is having on patients and this is without flu and without Covid,” he said.

“If we were to get a Covid outbreak you can only imagine how bad the situation would be and how our hospitals would be completely unable to cope.”

Health Minister Stephen Wade said there was “no denying that more capacity is needed in our emergency departments”.

“During the Covid-19 pandemic, hospitals throughout the nation have experienced increased pressure,” he said.

“A significant factor is the implementation of Covid protocols when treating patients which can often double the time it takes to treat an individual. Delayed care and increasing complexity of patient presentations are also potential contributing factors.”

Mr Wade said the Lyell McEwin Hospital was “in the midst of a $58 million upgrade which includes expanding its emergency department capacity from 53 to 72 treatment spaces”.

The Lyell McEwin Hospital’s emergency department on Tuesday evening. Picture: Supplied

The Advertiser reported earlier this month that the SA Ambulance Service was expanding its use of taxis for non-urgent patients by allowing on-road paramedics to decide if a cab is an appropriate option.

The move, which aimed to smash ambulance ramping, will see some patients put in taxis, at no cost, and taken to GP clinics or GP-led Priority Care Centres, or hospital EDs when no other option is available.

Prior to the expansion of the initiative, highly-trained paramedics who took triple-0 calls would assess the situation and make a decision to send a taxi rather than an ambulance.