Some Adelaide hospitals running at almost double capacity, but SA Health blames technical glitch

Some of Adelaide’s hospitals appear to be running at nearly double their capacity – but SA Health says its own official figures can’t be trusted.

South Australia’s struggling public health system appears to have run out of beds – again – with some hospitals reportedly running at almost double their official bed capacity.

However, SA Health dismissed its own data and said there were spare beds available.

At 10am on Monday the metropolitan public hospital system had a combined capacity of 2950 beds but SA Health’s website showed it had admitted 4057 patients with another 202 stuck in emergency departments waiting for a bed.

Hospitals such as Modbury and Lyell McEwin had admitted almost twice the number of inpatients as their official capacity, the website showed, but officials now say this was incorrect.

The situation appeared to get worse as they day went on and the data was updated.

SA Health inpatient data for metropolitan hospitals at 10am on November 28, 2022 showing official capacity, the number of inpatients admitted and the number in EDs waiting for a bed (WFB).

By 11am the website showed there were 4090 patients admitted and 204 people warehoused in EDs waiting for a suitable bed across metropolitan hospitals.

However, when contacted by The Advertiser, SA Health disputed its own data, saying it still has some spare beds and blamed a technical glitch.

“We are experiencing technical issues with reporting inpatient bed occupancy on the dashboards across the system and are working to rectify this as soon as possible,” a SA Health statement says.

SA Health figures show Lyell McEwin Hospital is running at double capacity. Picture: Matt Turner.

Officials say rather than around 200 people in EDs waiting for beds, at 11.30am there were 95 people and that admitted inpatients had not exceeded the system’s capacity.

SA Health ran out of inpatient beds for metropolitan patients in June with six patients warehoused in EDs waiting more than 24 hours for a bed.

Chief executives of various metropolitan health networks this month told a parliamentary committee they were using “unconventional” areas such as converted storerooms to house patients.

Southern Adelaide Local Health Network chief executive Dr Kerrie Freeman told the committee storerooms and treatment spaces were being converted to house beds.

“We are using every single bed we can … if it is a bed and it is safe we will put a patient in it,” she said.

Central Adelaide Local Health Network chief executive Professor Lesley Dwyer told the committee: “An unconventional space is a bed, it may not be a single room, it may be a recovery area.”

Prof Dwyer also noted ward patients due for discharge may be asked to sit on a chair so their bed can be used by patients to free up the ED.