Queen Elizabeth Hospital $314m upgrade to open as SA’s emergency departments continue to spill over

It didn’t take long for the newly upgraded Queen Elizabeth Hospital’s emergency room to fill up.

Clinicians say attempts to ease pressure on the Royal Adelaide Hospital emergency department – and meet a July 9 SafeWork SA deadline to reduce stress on staff there – means more ambulances will divert to the expanded Queen Elizabeth ED that opens today.

It means the new ED with 15 extra beds is likely to be regularly full from the start, they say.

At 5pm Tuesday, clinicians in the QEH’s existing 29-capacity emergency department were already treating 36 patients – as the metropolitan ED system ran out of beds, with 354 being treated despite a combined capacity of 317.

And while June’s ambulance ramping figures are yet to be released, May showed a record 4773 hours lost to ramping.

The nurses union warned ramping was “one part of a bigger problem” with more work needed to deal with overwhelming demand.

The new wing of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Brenton Edwards

Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation state secretary Elizabeth Dabars welcomed the increase in QEH ED capacity but said: “What we need is a better whole-of-system approach to help alleviate the overwhelming congestion in our system.

“We have been calling for additional beds and we have been vindicated by the current government’s commitment to extra beds.

“We continue to call for as many beds to come online as quickly as possible.

“We are cautiously optimistic the government agreed to work with us in recent weeks on a workforce plan necessary to staff those beds.”

At the RAH late yesterday, clinicians were treating 79 patients in its 69-capacity ED.

At one stage it had 11 patients waiting more than 24 hours for appropriate beds, plus 13 waiting between 12 and 24 hours.

The entrance to the new five-storey, $314m expansion of the QEH. Picture: Brenton Edwards

The new emergency department waiting area at the QEH. Picture: Brenton Edwards

Central Adelaide Local Health Network officials are furiously trying to ease pressure on the RAH ED by next Tuesday, the deadline for a SafeWork SA intervention order which carries the threat of a $250,000 fine. A SafeWork inspection concluded constant escalation in demand was putting workers at risk of psychological harm.

Ms Dabars has requested an urgent meeting with federal Health Minister Mark Butler to address areas such as support for National Disability Insurance Scheme patients medically ready for discharge.

“This week alone we learned of an NDIS patient who has been occupying an SA hospital bed for three months, who only remains in hospital pending the installation of a security screen on their door,” Ms Dabars said.

“Ensuring NDIS runs smoothly and this type of work is performed expeditiously will result in a win-win of the consumer being home sooner and the bed they are occupying unnecessarily being available to someone who actually needs and requires acute care.”

The statewide code yellow – SA Health internal emergency – continues, with 76 non-urgent elective surgeries postponed on Monday.