Qld emergency doctor says more Covid patients and sicker than ever

A Queensland doctor says more patients are presenting at hospital, sicker than ever as new Covid variants spread, with triage tents now established at some busy South East hospitals and the number of people admitted with the virus close to that seen just before the state’s first wave peaked.

Queenslanders have become alarmingly complacent about a surge in Covid-19 cases even though more patients are turning up at hospital and are much sicker than at any other time in the pandemic, an emergency doctor reports.

The “she’ll be right” Aussie attitude has shocked a frontline medic at Ipswich Hospital, one of the busiest health hubs in the state, considering the hospital’s emergency department is being visited by more people than ever before who are very sick.

“The combination of influenza and Covid just makes for a bad formula,” the doctor said.

It comes as the number of Queenslanders in hospital with Covid-19 has risen to 860 people with the third pandemic wave still at least a month away from peaking.

Queensland has never exceeded 1000 Covid-19 hospitalisations according to state health data, but the current number of pandemic patients is similar to rates seen just days before the peak of the first wave in January.

A frontline worker says more people are turning up at the Ipswich Hospital’s emergency department with Covid than ever, and that they are sicker. File picture

Queensland Health confirmed there were 15 more Covid-related deaths in the last 24 hours bringing the total pandemic toll to nearly 1340 people.

A total of 12 people are currently in intensive care.

The Ipswich insider said that there are no triage tents outside the hospital to deal with the onslaught but they have reopened Pod B to be a Covid-19 ward.

Pod B was originally a short stay unit but is now used for the Queensland Ambulance Service to ramp patients.

It transforms to an ED Covid-19 space when there is an influx of patients.

“Walk-in patients sit in chairs, it’s a mess,” the doctor said.

Triage tents are being used at other hospitals, in the Gold Coast and Metro South Hospital and Health Services districts in a bid to meet demand.

The tents have been erected outside some emergency departments during the pandemic to support a hospital’s response.

The insider’s ED insight comes as the chief health officer Dr John Gerrard has warned the state is still at least a month away from cases peaking.

Since the start of the pandemic more than 1330 people in Queensland have died and there have been more than 1.3 million cases in the state.

“Our hospitals are under immense pressure — the number of Covid-19 patients has risen by 140 per cent just in the past month because of the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants.”

Chief health officer Dr John Gerrard says the current Covid wave is yet to peak. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Tertius Pickard

Updated vaccination data shows a significant gulf between Queensland’s best and least protected areas.

Brisbane’s north and west side, including Brookfield, Indooroopilly, the Gap, and Everton Park had more than 70 per cent of its populations armed with boosters.

But areas like Jimboomba, Browns Plains, Biloela, Ormeau and Oxenford had Covid-19 vaccine booster coverage of under 55 per cent.

Deakin University infectious disease expert Professor Catherine Bennett said it was important people kept up their Covid-19 immunity with vaccinations.

“Because otherwise (Covid-19) just gets better and better at challenging us with uncontrolled infections across the globe (and) that’s the recipe for new variants unfortunately,” she said.

Griffith University virologist Professor Nigel McMillan said it was it was likely “fewer and fewer” people would be getting follow up Covid-19 vaccines due to fatigue and complacency.

He said the Omicron-specific update to Covid-19 vaccines, including Pfizer’s, would “make a big difference” if they were available in Australia now.

“If we had that vaccine today, we would have far fewer infections and obviously far fewer hospitalisations,” Prof McMillan said.

The Therapeutic Goods Administration last week granted Pfizer provisional determinations for updated jabs, allowing the manufacturer to lodge documents to get full approval for the vaccines to be delivered in Australia.

The TGA said it would “undertake a rigorous assessment of the safety, efficacy and quality of these vaccines with the highest priority” once Pfizer had lodged its documentation.