Patients waiting over 24 hours for beds as major Adelaide hospital EDs come under pressure amid health reforms

HEALTH reforms put major city hospitals under intense pressure on Saturday — with emergency departments operating near or above capacity and treated patients waiting more than 24 hours for a bed.

• Patient endured 4-day wait for bed at RAH
• Survey: Most SA surgeons don’t support Transforming Health reform
• Coroner: Review committees in SA Health ‘an elaborate secret system’
• Debate: Will Transforming Health help or hurt SA hospital system?

MAJOR city hospitals were under intense pressure on Saturday — with emergency departments operating near or above capacity and treated patients waiting more than 24 hours for a bed.

Royal Adelaide Hospital, Lyell McEwin Hospital, Flinders Medical Centre, Queen Elizabeth Hospital and the Women’s and Children’s Hospital emergency departments were all near or above their designated ED capacity over the course of the afternoon.

At the RAH, midafternoon there were two patients who were being treated but had been waiting for a bed for more than 24 hours.

Another patient had been waiting for more than 24 hours just to be treated.

At the overloaded QEH at 3pm, the 31-capacity ED was treating 37 patients with 11 waiting to be seen, and five people who had been treated had been waiting between 12 and 24 hours for a bed.

Officials notified emergency authorities they were commencing triaging patients in the carpark and diverting ambulances to Modbury Hospital — whose ED is being wound down — and the RAH.

The Emergency Department at Queen Elizabeth Hospital ... ED’s in major Adelaide hospitals were all near or above their designated ED capacity over the course of the afternoon.

The ongoing gridlock continues as the Transforming Health plan winds down Modbury Hospital’s ED and shuts the Repatriation General Hospital, and comes at the start of the winter flu season when demand escalates dramatically.

On Friday, The Advertiser exclusively revealed the RAH at 10am last Monday had one patient in the ED who had been waiting more than 48 hours for a bed following treatment, two who had been waiting more than 24 hours and another 24 who had been waiting varying times.

Health Minister Jack Snelling says the gridlock shows the need for the Transforming Health reforms — which include smoothing discharges to open up more ward beds on weekends, in turn freeing up space in EDs.

He said under the plans, more senior doctors will be rostered on to work weekends and the new RAH will see some patients admitted directly to specialist wards, bypassing the ED.

Senior RAH ED doctors note recent reforms have improved the situation there but more needs to be done.

Critics of the Transforming Health plan such as Professor Warren Jones warn the cutbacks under Transforming Health will add even more pressure on major hospitals regardless of assurances that new efficiencies will free up beds.