New RAH resuscitation bays too small to treat critical trauma patients

THE resuscitation bays at the Royal Adelaide Hospital have been built too small for staff to safety treat critical trauma patients, putting people’s lives at risk, doctors say.

RESUSCITATION bays at the Royal Adelaide Hospital have been built too small for staff to safely treat critical trauma patients, putting people’s lives at risk, doctors say.

SA Health has admitted doctors have voiced concerns about the eight bays in the hospital’s emergency department and used to perform lifesaving treatment, including issues about lack of space.

One option to fix the design flaw involves reducing the number of bays from eight to six, and making them larger.

In a statement, an SA Health spokesman said resuscitation bays were built to national regulations but conceded there was a problem.

“All of our resuscitation bays are around 28.9 sqm and comply with the Australasian Health Facility Guidelines for resuscitation bays, which is 25 sqm,” the spokesman said.

“We have recently received feedback from our emergency and trauma clinicians, and Dr Tom Soulsby, our head of our emergency services, is leading a clinical team that is considering a number of options to increase the capacity and space available.”

South Australian Salaried Medical Officers Association past president Dr David Pope said the bays were “too small for the number of doctors and nurses that need to be in those rooms for those complex (trauma) cases”.

“Ultimately people can die because (staff) are not able to get all the things they need quickly enough because of the size constraint,” he said.

Dr Pope said more than a dozen staff were required in resuscitation rooms at any one time in cases such as a stabbing, shooting, car crash or an industrial accident.

“It’s not only the size of the room that’s the problem, it’s the number of (pieces of) equipment crammed in there,” he said.

“The other issue is occupational health and safety for all the staff involved. All of these tasks require needles and other sharp objects. Without sufficient space, you can injure yourself or other people with needle sticks.” Dr Pope said the bays at the old RAH were “certainly larger”.

He said the problem had arisen because the State Government had not adequately consulted with staff on the new RAH layout, and this had resulted in issues including a lack of room for outpatients. Australian Medical Association (SA) president William Tam said the bays needed to be “an adequate size to resuscitate an unwell person”.

“It could be 20 people working in the room. That’s why you need a big room,” he said.

“It was recognised (by the Government) the rooms were of inadequate size before the move ... (I) understand steps are being taken to rectify the size.”

There were four bays at the old RAH.