Victorian patients languish longer in emergency departments and ambulance queues

Victorians are waiting longer for an urgent ambulance response or treatment at emergency departments, as the state’s frontline health services continue to be stretched by staff illness and a growing cohort of particularly unwell patients.

The latest quarterly health performance data shows a dramatic increase in the number of people who have been stuck in emergency departments for more than 24 hours, as they waited for a bed to become available at hospitals grappling with COVID, the flu and the impact of delayed care.

Released on Saturday, the data shows that from April to June this year, 1844 patients had their ED stays stretch out for more than 24 hours, a more than four-fold increase in a year.

More than 1800 Victorians spent more than 24 hours in an emergency department due to the intense pressure on the hospital system. Credit: Chris Hopkins

Australasian College of Emergency Medicine’s Victorian chair Dr Belinda Hibble said in addition to these more extreme cases, doctors were telling her there were also “a huge volume of patients that are spending more time in EDs than they have before”.

“So what you can’t see is all the patients that sat for 23 hours and 22 hours waiting for a bed.”

Hibble said more needed to be done to help staff beds in other areas of the hospital, and more support was needed to safely discharge patients from these areas, “rather than concentrating all the risk in the emergency department”.

Meanwhile, Ambulance Victoria is falling considerably short of its target to reach 85 per cent of the state’s code-one cases within 15 minutes, following a third consecutive quarter where code one demand records have been broken.

Only 64 per cent of these priority patients were reached within this timeframe. Many paramedics instead spent too long stuck at overcrowded hospitals, where more than 40 per cent of ambulance patients were queued waiting to be admitted for more than 40 minutes.

“There are no signs of demand slowing down through winter. COVID-19 continues to pose a high risk to Victorians and will do some for some time,” said Ambulance Victoria’s interim chief executive Felicity Topp.

Ambulances were called to 97,928 code one cases from April to June this year, making this quarter the busiest in Ambulance Victoria’s history.

There were 16 per cent (or 13,487) more “lights and sirens” cases compared to this time last year and 4,694 more than the previous quarter.

A small improvement to the number of Victorians waiting for “planned” or elective surgeries was reported, with the wait list now at just above 87,000, a decrease of about 1600. There was also an almost 50 per cent increase in patients receiving their surgeries compared to the previous quarter.

However, the data does not include the peak of the latest Omicron wave, which disrupted elective surgery as beds were taken up by COVID-19 patients and staff fell sick with COVID, the flu and other winter illnesses.

Victorian Health Minister Mary-Anne Thomas said it was not yet possible to say with confidence whether the elective surgery waiting list would continue to decline over the months to come.

“We’re still feeling the impacts of COVID in our healthcare system. In this quarter that we’re in right now, we’ve seen significant hospitalisations with COVID, we continue to see furloughing, but we’ve put in place a series of reforms and I hope to see those continue to deliver outcomes,” she said.

Victorian Health Minister Mary-Anne Thomas said the state’s hospitals were still feeling the impacts of COVID.Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui

“We are working with all of our health care services to ensure that everyone on a waiting list is being actively managed. If anyone is concerned about increasing pain, or they’re worried about their symptoms, please go and see your GP.”

Although the number of patients being treated in emergency departments has not risen in the past year, the number of those who are presenting seriously ill has, with hundreds more requiring resuscitation.

“We deduce that this is a consequence of people deferring care that they need, so please go and see your GP if you’re at all concerned about your health,” Thomas said.

Shadow health spokeswoman Georgie Crozier said the ambulance response times were not good enough.

“Every second counts for a code one, and those targets are nowhere near being met. This isn’t just caused because of COVID. It’s years of underinvestment and mismanagement by the Andrews Labor government.”

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