‘Just let me die’: 93-year-old woman stuck in ramped ambulance at RAH for three hours

A 93-year-old dementia patient stuck in a ramped ambulance for three hours on Monday morning pleaded with her daughter to let her die.

Annalisa Tiggemann was looking for fast help for her 93-year-old mother Agatha when she was rushed to hospital by ambulance on Monday morning – instead she was stuck in the back of an ambulance ramped in the carpark at the Royal Adelaide Hospital for three hours.

“She was saying ‘just let me die’ – it was awful,” Ms Tiggemann said.

“The poor old ambulance officers kept apologising, the nurses and doctors were fine but there is simply not enough staff.

“They have to open up more beds so people like my mother don’t go through this.”

Ms Tiggemann cares for her mother at her Kilburn home.

“She suffered a fall on Sunday but didn’t want to go to hospital because she waited two-and-a-half hours to be seen a couple of months ago,” she said.

“This morning she called me in at 7.30am and said she could not breathe and asked for an ambulance.

“We got to the hospital at 8.30am but did not get in until 11.40am – a three-hour wait in the carpark.

Annalisa Tiggemann is angry her 93-year-old mum Agatha was ramped at Royal Adelaide Hospital (RAH) for three hours. Picture: Simon Cross

“My mother has some dementia and was getting increasingly agitated and very upset. It is just not good enough.”

Agatha in the back of an ambulance, where she was stuck for three hours on Monday morning at the RAH. Pictured supplied

Ms Tiggemann said she was in one of eight ambulances ramped at the RAH at the time. Officials say her mother was admitted two and a half hours after arriving.

At 2pm on Monday all metropolitan hospital emergency departments were on Code White – treating more people than their official capacity and with long average waiting times.

Combined, Adelaide’s public hospitals had started treating 330 patients, but their total emergency department capacity is 301.

At the RAH 72 patients were being treated in the 69-capacity ED. Forty people who had been treated were stuck in the ED waiting for a bed, including nine waiting for more than 24 hours.

Flinders Medical Centre was treating 75 people in its 65-capacity ED, Lyell McEwin Hospital was treating 52 patients in its 51-capacity ED and the Queen Elizabeth Hospital was treating 39 patients in its 29-capacity ED.

The ED gridlock comes as ambulance ramping has hit record highs, hitting 2281 hours lost in April – a year after officials had set a deadline to end ramping at the RAH.

Health and Wellbeing Minister Stephen Wade said initiatives underway would result in a 65 per cent boost in treatment spaces across metropolitan and peri-urban emergency departments.

There will be an extra 138 treatment spaces in EDs and emergency extended care units including increasing FMC’s treatment spaces by 30 to 86 spaces, Lyell McEwin’s from 39 to 72 and adding 15 at the QEH.

Mr Wade noted Monday is often a busy time at hospitals and the RAH had seen an unusual early rush of patients including several urgent “walk-in” cases.

“I feel for the lady and her family – it was a busy time,” he said.

Opposition health spokesman Chris Picton said: “No one should be forced to be stuck on an ambulance stretcher for three hours without dignity, without full care, and even without toilet facilities.

“Let alone the fact that when ambulances are ramped they are unable to respond to the next urgent cases in the community.

“We are sadly accustomed now to ramping crisis at Flinders, QEH and RAH. Today it extended even to Modbury Hospital.

“The facts are clear – ramping has doubled over the past three years and is now the worst it has ever been.”