Royal Adelaide Hospital ED’s six ‘new treatment areas’ were already there

THE besieged Royal Adelaide Hospital emergency department appeared to get six new beds overnight but inquiries by The Advertiser show they are just old beds with a new name.

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IT seemed like a medical miracle as the besieged Royal Adelaide Hospital emergency department suddenly had an extra six beds today as its struggled to cope with chronic overcrowding.

But it turns out the real story wasn’t quite so clear cut.
Inquiries by The Advertiser have revealed the change in official figures simply added six existing beds short stay beds to the total.

The boost from 65 beds to 71 on the SA Health website followed claims by clinicians the ED was in ‘crisis’ and pledges by new Health Minister Stephen Wade to deal with it.

A SA Health statement to The Advertiser said: “There are no changes to the actual number of bed spaces.

“The (website) is being updated to more accurately reflect the use of six Emergency Extended Care beds that are located adjacent to the emergency department.

“These beds have been in use for short-stay inpatients since the hospital opened but have only recently been categorised as inpatient beds.”

The juggling of figures follows damning criticism of the $2.3bn hospital by clinicians who say the ED is in crisis with regular overcrowding.

The ED has been jammed with patients — they have been treated but there are no ward beds to send them to swiftly and some have been staying in the ED for days.

As reported by The Advertiser, on March 8 clinicians in the ED wanted officials to declare it an official “disaster” zone as 91 patients crammed in, which would have allowed them to tell new, non-urgent arrivals to instead see a GP, but officials refused.

Safework SA is now investigating after an audit by the SA Salaried Medical Officers Association found multiple alleged breaches of health and safety regulations in the ED and also in the mental health ward, where duress alarms still do not work six months after the hospital opened.

The emergency department at the Royal Adelaide Hospital.

Health Minister Stephen Wade says the problems with the ED are deep and that opening more ward beds in the hospital to improve patient flow out of the ED is not the simple answer it seems.

He conceded he does not know how many inpatient beds the supposedly 800-bed hospital now has, as some have been converted to outpatient clinics.

It now appears the new RAH — costing taxpayers $1 million a day — has fewer operational inpatient beds than the old RAH when it closed.

The addition of the six treatment spaces in the ED has not eased the logjam in the system as patients are stuck in limbo after treatment.

At 10.30am on Thursday there were 35 people who had been treated but who were waiting for ward beds, including 13 who had been waiting for between 12 and 24 hours.

New arrivals faced an average 42 minutes to be treated, excluding high priority cases.