Dr Megan Brooks lashes health care system and RAH ED in scathing four-page resignation letter

The head of the RAH emergency department has resigned via a four-page letter blasting SA Health for “offending the very humanity” of clinicians. Read her scathing letter here.

A high ranking emergency physician has lashed SA Health in a four page resignation letter in which she says the current state of the RAH emergency department “offends the very humanity” of doctors working there.

Dr Megan Brooks was medical lead for acute and urgent care at the RAH for a decade and helped steer the state’s largest emergency department through the depths of Covid.

However, on December 16 she penned a letter in which she gave her six weeks notice and implored chief executive of the Central Adelaide Local Health Network chief executive Professor Lesley Dwyer to listen to the concerns of clinicians and staff.

Dr Brooks wrote that clinicians in the emergency department have become targets within CALHN and are accused of “denying patients care” and being “addicted” to ramping.

READ BELOW: Dr Brooks’ scathing resignation letter in full

“(Claims) that clinicians in ED and inpatient teams ‘just aren’t working hard enough’ and ‘want to keep patients in hospital’ could not be further from the truth, or indeed more offensive,” she wrote.

“Our failure to act as an organisation to ensure that all our clinical teams have appropriate resources to provide timely and safe patient care reflects our collective failure of leadership and governance. Our patients deserve so much better.”

She said that clinicians were finding it impossible to provide the care to patients they trained to give.

Dr Megan Brooks has lashed SA Health in a four-page resignation letter in which she accuses the department of placing lives at risk while blaming clinicians. Picture: Mark Brake

“The ED clinicians are as horrified as I am by our daily inability to provide care to patients when they need it,” she wrote.

“It offends our very humanity, and flies in the face of all that we are trained to do.

“What is not understood by those outside the ED is that we have looked every one of those patients in the eye and been forced to decide that another human being needs care before them.”

Dr Brooks said multiple reports and investigations into the state of CALHN had revealed the depths of the problems facing the system, but that the response to recommendations had been inadequate.

“Task forces with short term agendas focused on “quick wins”, with inadequate representation are not the solution,” she wrote.

“Putting the word ‘empower’ in the title is pointless unless the Executive and Board are willing to listen to, and act, on the actual barriers the programs face that they cannot resolve internally.”

Some of the most damning criticism was saved for the Finance and Service Planning leadership who Dr Brooks accused of failing to do their jobs properly.

“If the clinical teams conducted our work with the same flagrant disregard for basic governance processes and professionalism, we would be at risk of being barred from clinical practice,” she wrote.

Prof Dwyer said she had met with Dr Brooks to discuss the resignation.

“At CALHN we will continue to listen and work with our workforce and patients to improve our health network and to support clinical staff to provide safe and effective care for patients, she said.

“However, I have always been open about the fact that there continues to be significant demand and pressure on our emergency departments, the broader network and health system on top of a very challenging few years of pandemic response.”

Central Adelaide Local Health Network CEO Lesley Dwyer. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Brenton Edwards

Health Minister Chris Picton. Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Mariuz

Prof Dwyer said there was still work to do to address demand for hospital beds and ramping.

She also said accusations of disrespectful behaviour towards clinicians were being taken seriously and a new program would be rolled out in 2023 to address the broader professional behaviours.

Health Minister Chris Picton said he spoken with Dr Brooks and thanked her for her work.

He acknowledged pressure the system was under the need to reform in the face of “years of neglect of the system”.

“I take the matters raised in the letter seriously and I will be raising these matters with the CALHN Board and Executive,” he said.

“We are investing a record $2.4 billion to open more than 550 extra beds, recruit hundreds more doctors, nurses and ambos and build and upgrade key infrastructure across the state to provide the capacity our healthcare system needs.”

Opposition health spokeswoman Ashton Hurn called for action in response to the letter.

“Dr Brooks is a well-respected clinician – and Labor simply cannot afford to ignore her warnings about the intense and relentless pressure on our health care workers,” she said.