Flinders Medical Centre nurses to cancel elective admissions as standoff for extra beds intensifies
FLINDERS Medical Centre nurses have voted to cancel elective admissions, as the campaign to force the opening of 50 extra beds intensifies and city emergency departments were again besieged on Tuesday.
FLINDERS Medical Centre nurses have voted to cancel elective admissions, as the campaign to force the opening of 50 extra beds intensifies and city emergency departments were again besieged on Tuesday.
At 5pm, four of the city’s seven emergency departments were in code white, operating above their capacity, as the nurses union and Minister Stephen Wade remained in a standoff over the extra beds.
This included the FMC, treating 80 patients in its 53-bed ED, a further 23 people waiting to be seen and another 11 ambulance arriving.
FMC will cancel elective admissions from next Thursday if Mr Wade does not commit to opening 50 extra beds across the system.
The decision — voted on unanimously by more than 100 FMC nurses at a meeting yesterday to discuss action — follows Monday’s announcement that elective admissions at the Royal Adelaide Hospital will also be cancelled if action is not taken by the minister.
Affected FMC patients would be given prepaid postcards addressed to the Health Minister, and rolling stop-work rallies would be held from Monday.
Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (SA Branch) secretary Elizabeth Dabars said it was feasible that 50 subacute beds at the Repat Hospital could be opened within four weeks, and possibly 10 within seven days.
“We are still urging the Minister to act, and we hope by Friday we would have a commitment,’’ she said.
But Mr Wade said the union had “stood by in silence” when Labor closed the Repat, and the Government would continue its ongoing process into “reactivating” the Repat.
“Community consultations have just closed and now the nurses union, after letting the Repat close, wants to ambush the local community’s views,’’ he said.
“We sought ideas from the local community and people around the state who are passionate about the Repat, we have listened and will now act on the service they want, need and deserve. As we finalise reactivating the Repat, I will put the needs of the community first.
“The Marshall Government has been consulting on reactivating the Repat for months including opening new beds. These are important long-term decisions for the state.
“The government will honour and see through the comprehensive and consultative process we set up as we reactivate the Repat.”
Ms Dabars said the union had “not stood silent” as the Repat was closed. “We sought and obtained from the government a commitment that no bed would be closed until it was demonstrated they weren’t needed,’’ she said.