One in 10 wait more than 27 hours for a bed in SA EDs

A new report shows one in ten mental health patients waited more than 27 hours in SA public EDs before being admitted.

South Australia’s mental health report card for emergency department (ED) presentations is the worst of the nation’s mainland states in key areas including patient wait times for a bed.

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) report shows one in ten mental health patients waited more than 27 hours and 45 minutes in SA public EDs to be admitted in 2019/20. The longest wait was for Tasmanians.

The key ED indicators, released by the AIHW this week, do not cover SA’s mental health post-COVID demand surge which began later last year and has resulted in patients bottlenecked in EDs.

One in ten mental health patients waited more than 27 hours and 45 minutes in SA public EDs to be admitted in 2019/20. Picture: Phil Palmer of Ambulance Employees Association

The report found that in South Australian public EDs:

SIX hours and 50 minutes was the average ED waiting time for all mental health patients (worst in the nation behind Tasmania, with a nine hour average wait);

ONE in 10 mental health patients waited more than 143 minutes to be seen by a health professional (second highest to Tasmanians who waited 41 minutes more)

ALMOST 43 per cent of all mental health-related presentations were not seen on time (the worst of any mainland state).

Opposition health spokesman Chris Picton. Picture: Keryn Stevens

SA Health Minister Stephen Wade. Photo: David Mariuz

Opposition health spokesman Chris Picton said the critical indicators were a “wake-up” for the state government, which was providing the most delayed mental health care of any mainland state and must invest significantly more in beds and nurses.

“The outrageous time that patients are stuck in emergency departments has worsened, with the problem over 17 per cent worse than two years ago,” he said.

“Since this report, we are now seeing further mental health pressure fuelled by the impact of the pandemic and unemployment situation.”

The Advertiser’s Let’s Talk campaign has repeatedly reported an unprecedented coalition of mental health peak bodies and unions urgently calling for the state government to fund a minimum 136 extra mental health beds and 140 nurses.

Health minister Stephen Wade said the indicators referred to were amongst many in a very large report that looks at a range of issues across the country. Mr Wade added that the report had noted SA had the highest proportion of ED patient presentations for mental health issues in 2019-20.

He said the Mental Health Services Plan, released in November 2019, directly addressed ED presentations and that a range of initiatives had been introduced since the reporting period which were seeing positive results.

Among them were four short-term measures to ease ED pressure after a recent mental health forum raised concerns over the failing mental health system. Mr Wade said the government was considering longer term actions and that further announcements would be made in the lead-up to next month’s State Budget.