New RAH is full and one patient waited four days for a bed, parliamentary hearing told

THE $2.3 billion Royal Adelaide Hospital is “full to the brim” and one patient waited four days for a bed, it has emerged from evidence given to a parliamentary committee.

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A PATIENT waited almost four days for an inpatient bed after being treated in the emergency department of the Royal Adelaide Hospital, a parliamentary committee was told by SA Health acting chief executive Lynne Cowan.

A snapshot of how the RAH is coping shows on Monday morning there were 648 people in beds and another 57 waiting — including eight who had been waiting for more than 24 hours.

SA Health’s deputy chief executive for Transforming Health, Lynne Cowan.

The parliamentary committee on Transforming Health was told the longest wait by any patient for a bed since the hospital opened was 3.73 days — triggering disbelief among some committee members including Greens’ Tammy Franks, who sought clarification whether it was hours or days.

Ms Cowan, confirmed it was days and went on to say: “It is not OK but we are seeing an improvement.”

However, SA Health later released a statement saying: “A clinical decision was made to provide the medical management for the patient in a single-person cubicle within the RAH Emergency Department rather than transfer them to a general ward as the patient required monitoring from an expert Clinical Toxicologist who is based in the ED.”

Ms Franks queried a key government justification for Transforming Health — that there were 500 avoidable deaths in the health system each year — but Ms Cowan could not say how many, if any, avoidable deaths had been prevented since the controversial program started.

She said Transforming Health would cease at the end of December.

Committee chair Stephen Wade asked how many beds had closed under Transforming Health and Ms Cowan replied: “I could not tell you a finite number at this point.”

Mr Wade, the Opposition health spokesman, later described the government’s health policy as “a shambles”.

“To hear one patient had to wait four days for a bed at the RAH is horrific,” he said. “Two months after opening the hospital they said was built for future growth (it) is full to the brim.”

The committee also heard from Ray Creen from ACH Group, which is buying the Repatriation Hospital site. He said the masterplan for a health precinct would go to Health Minister Peter Malinauskas for approval this Thursday.

However, he warned the proposal was contingent on the minister approving the plan to rezone land so ACH could onsell land to “different operators or developers”.

“The masterplan is based on rezoning, and is dependent on rezoning — so if rezoning doesn’t occur we most likely would have to renegotiate and discuss the masterplan and what can and cannot be divided,” Mr Creen said.