Top surgeon Craig Jurisevic releases photos of empty operating rooms while people wait for lifesaving surgery

Photos released by a rogue surgeon lay bare the reality of the RAH’s empty operating rooms and intensive care units, while people wait for lifesaving surgeries.

A top South Australian surgeon has released photographs of what he says are empty and idle operating rooms and an unstaffed intensive care unit at the Royal Adelaide Hospital while demanding the state government explains why lifesaving surgeries are being cancelled.

Cardiothoracic and trauma surgeon Craig Jurisevic has vented his frustration at the cancellation of surgeries by posting photographs to his Facebook page of six unused operating theatres and one 12-bed ICU.

He said the pictures showed some of the rooms being used as store rooms, another as an area for research work and one “used as a studio for a freelance film crew”.

Dr Jurisevic, who last month quit the public health system over concerns patients were “waiting dangerously long for lifesaving surgery,” directed his message at Premier Steven Marshall.

“We have had to cancel another two urgent lung cancer patients today due to lack of operating theatres and ICU beds,” he wrote.

An empty operating room at the Royal Adelaide Hospital being used for storage. Picture: Craig Jurisevic.

“Could you please explain these photos taken from the unstaffed and idle 12-bed ICU ward and six operating theatres?”

Dr Jurisevic said he was “asking for all the cancer patients who have had (and will have) their lifesaving surgery cancelled because you refuse to employ the staff to run the hospital to the capacity for which it was built”.

An intensive care unit room bring used to store recliners. Picture: Craig Jurisevic

Another ICU left empty and storing recliner chairs. Picture: Craig Jurisevic.

In another Facebook post, Dr Jurisevic claimed a “senior line manager has threatened staff members who have ‘liked’” my posts about lung cancer surgery cancellations.

“It is alleged that a line manager confronted specific individuals who have made supportive statements on my timeline, stating that their Facebook activity is being watched and that they had ‘better be careful’,” he wrote.

Chief executive at the Central Adelaide Local Health Network Lesley Dwyer said decisions to cancel surgeries were difficult.

“Our ICU has been planned to be 60 beds but that is about future proofing,” Ms Dwyer said.

“Occasionally when we do have to cancel surgeries it’s based on a number of factors.

“Many of those factors are around our emergency demand, as you know the Royal Adelaide is the state’s trauma-receiving hospital – that means we have not been able to find enough time in theatres and in ICU.”

An ICU room us used as a studio for a freelance film crew. Picture: Craig Jurisevic

An ICU room is used as an office or for medical staff to sleep overnight – because there is no facilities for on-call staff who must sleep there. Picture: Craig Jurisevic.

When asked about a film crew being present in an ICU ward Ms Dwyer said was normal practice.

“You’ll see this in most hospitals, we provide educational material and films not only for our community, but for teaching purposes within the Royal Adelaide for our staff.

“On that particular day we had a film crew there filming for our safety team so that is an educational video, it was done in a day.

“Every day we balance our planned surgery with matters attending to our front door, we really take the decision to cancel surgeries very seriously.

An operating theatre being used for storage. Picture: Craig Jurisevic

“Like every other hospital, we have times where sick leave and other things that happen on the day, which mean we have to run in a different way, but right now we have enough capacity to not only deal with the work we have but also respond to Covid-19.”

An ICU room being used for research. Picture: Craig Jurisevic

Premier Steven Marshall said: “We know we have a large ICU capacity at the Royal Adelaide hospital and some of that needs to be preserved for those times when there is a significant trauma in South Australia and we need that surge capacity.”

Opposition Leader Peter Malinauskas said it was a tragedy that people were having lifesaving surgeries cancelled while those rooms sat unused.

“If we do not have enough clinicians to staff existing demand, how will we cope when there is an influx of Covid-19 patients," he said.