Hospital whistleblower says 400 more beds needed to fix crisis

There are so many health scandals swamping the Palaszczuk Government right now it’s hard to decide which is the more grievous. “It’s a shambles,” writes Doctor X from inside Queensland Health.

THERE are so many health scandals swamping the Palaszczuk Government right now it’s hard to decide which is the more grievous.

Perhaps it is our third-world approach to bush pregnancies, with outback women tossed a DIY birthing kit and left to fend for themselves.

Or could it be the delays to vital eye surgery that cost Cairns patients their sight?

Patients to expect longer wait times, transfers, amid surge of admissions

New step taken to address hospital bed shortages

More than 500 patients left on stretchers as ‘rapid offloads’ soar

No guarantees ambulance ramping crisis at Cairns Hospital will be halted if change in government

Paramedics clash with Logan Hospital emergency department staff in overcrowding rift

Logan, Redland hospitals worst in state for ramping

Shorten pledges $33m to ease overcrowding at Logan Hospital

Besieged Health Minister Steven Miles went on holiday as that news broke. And Annastacia Palaszczuk was missing in action on a mysterious European trade mission.

The Premier still won’t admit the biggest health scandal of all is the profound shortage of hospital beds.

Beds are the engine room of any hospital. Without enough beds everything else fails. Urgent treatments are delayed, surgeries cancelled. Patients are sent home prematurely, often with disastrous consequences.

Minister for Health and Ambulance Services Steven Miles at the Spring Hill Ambulance Station, Brisbane. Picture: Liam Kidston.

Without enough beds children in urgent need of care become victims of a bizarre lucky dip, helicoptered from one overcrowded hospital to another.

Bed block causes ramping at hospitals, with ambulance paramedics begging nurses to admit patients because they are urgently needed at the next emergencies.

For the very sick and wounded, chances of survival diminish.

Now she is back, Palaszczuk must explain why her Government has not delivered the 370 new hospital beds it promised in the last election campaign.

At the time, Miles said the beds were a “very high priority”.

Shamefully, Labor was willing to spend another $1 billion fattening public service departments – but couldn’t find the money to honour its bed pledge.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, with Health Minister Steven Miles, November 18, 2018. Picture: AAP Image/Josh Woning

Ros Bates, the opposition spokeswoman for health, pointed to comments by the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine describing ramping as an indicator of systemic health care dysfunction.

“When it comes to health, Labor’s priorities are all wrong,” she says.

“They’ve set up clinical decision units and rapid offload ambulance transfer policies to fudge the figures – not fix the problems.

“We have seen hundreds of millions of dollars wasted on health IT projects that doctors say don’t work and put patient safety at risk. Our hospitals are at breaking point.”

A senior doctor sounded the alarm in a private letter to me this week.

Doctor X works at the pointy end of one of the state’s biggest hospitals. He says we need another 400 beds right now.

Health chiefs are conspiring with the political class to hide the crisis.

“What makes it worse is the senior executives of Queensland Health are party to falsifying stats to make the system look better than it is. They are hiding the truth,” he says.

Ten hospitals in Queensland have recently sounded the “code yellow” alarm, an indicator of an internal emergency.

Code yellows and bed block go hand-in-hand.

Doctor X chose to remain anonymous because Queensland Health is “a bullying organisation” and he fears “retribution”.

He adds: “The truth is the health system is a basket case due to bad planning; despite the population growth figures staring them in the face,” he says.

It has become “acceptable” for patients to bunk down on a trolley at night.

Doctors and nurses rushing with hospital trolley. Picture: iStock

“We see up to 50 or more ambulances a day getting stuck on the ramps and not able to get in because the ED’s are choked off with admissions,” he says.

“It means these ambulances are not available for other emergencies.

“This week saw nurses and ambulance officers fighting over access but it is the fault of neither.

“Front line doctors and nurses suffer every hour of the week while the suits in Health go home and sleep.”

He says health and hospital chiefs who suggest bed numbers are adequate are not being truthful.

“Every doctor who works on the coal face know this is a lie,” he writes. “The system is a shambles.”

Doctor X praises whistleblowing emergency specialist Michael Cameron from Redland Hospital who said patients arriving at the emergency department waited not hours, but days for a bed.

A Courier-Mail investigation found 500 ambulance patients were left on stretchers in emergency hallways in a single month.

Doctor X says overcrowding is worse than the official figures reflect because many patients are hidden in CDUs, or Clinical Decision Units.

“CDUs inside emergency departments are false wards. They hide the fact that the patient hadn’t actually left the ED by pretending that they have been admitted when they turn up.”

Patients in these “virtual wards” end up waiting on trolleys not inpatient beds, he says.

“This is a lie and unethical, hiding the real facts from Canberra about Q Health performance figures.”

Dr Michael Cameron, an emergency physician at Redland Hospital, who has written an open letter to the People of Redlands about lack of beds and access to medical specialties at Redland Hospital, February 6, 2019. Picture: AAP/Steve Pohlner

He says surgical and emergency targets cannot be achieved while different departments are in competition for the same bed.

Doctor X believes mental patients suffer most.

“Mental health patients fare the worst, often spending days not hours on couches and chairs and corridors waiting to be admitted.”

And there are odd priorities in surgery.

“Very sick and critically ill patients are stuck in ED’s in hospitals like Logan while they use beds instead to do hernias to meet surgical targets.

“Anyone who raises these issues in meetings is either ignored or threatened.

“The crisis highlighted in the press is not a freak activity peak. It is the result of seriously bad planning. Patients are suffering and actually dying from the obstruction of the system.

“We (doctors) lie awake worrying about our patients we’ve seen that day, and get up in the morning to read bulls--- statements from politicians and bureaucrats telling us everything is OK. It’s not.”

PS ....

CAVALCADE OF FOOLS

ANTI-MINING zealots in Bob Brown’s Stop Adani convoy (above) will, ironically be powered by coal.

“His fleet of cars is built with coal and their emissions of 455 tonnes of CO2 is the equivalent of burning 200 tonnes of coal,” says Ian Macfarlane from the Queensland Resources Council. “When Bob Brown drives into Queensland, he will be surrounded by as much metal as the Tin Man.”

Bob Brown speaks last week in Melbourne as part of the Stop Adani Convoy event – Over 700 vehicles have reportedly registered for the convoy travelling from Tasmania to Canberra via New South Wales and Queensland. Picture: Scott Barbour/Getty Images

The vehicles are made from an assortment of minerals mined in Queensland and fashioned in furnaces fired with Queensland coal. Macfarlane says the anti-coal journey from Tasmania represents 18 tonnes of copper, 75 tonnes of aluminium, 94 tonnes of coking coal to make the steel, 300 tonnes of bauxite to make the aluminium and 342 tonnes of thermal coal.

Queenslanders mine all those resources, and more. No fewer than 316,000 rely on the resources sector for their jobs. That is why I regard the former Greens leader’s cavalcade as an anti-Queensland stunt. I wonder if the activists know that 92km of every 100km of their journey will be fuelled by resources.

COAL CARS?

THE Tesla and Prius electric vehicles used in Bob Brown’s protest jaunt have four times more copper than a conventional car.

Around 80 per cent of the state’s electricity is powered by fossil fuels with the majority sourced from coal.

“It’s this electricity that is used to charge electric vehicles and people’s smart phones,” says the QRC’s Macfarlane.

“If it wasn’t for coal, this anti-jobs campaign would need to cross the Bass Strait in a wooden boat then walk to the Galilee Basin.”

QRC chief Ian Macfarlane at Port of Brisbane, November last year. Picture: AAP/John Gass

And let’s not forget that batteries used to store electricity need several mined metals and materials including bauxite, copper and nickel.

ADANI GAP WIDENS

PREMIER Annastacia Palaszczuk’s refusal to discuss her views on the Adani project is worrying union powerbrokers within her own party.

One says her leadership has become “ineffectual”.

He believes Palaszczuk has been warned by federal Labor strategists not to discuss the project for fear of rocking Bill Shorten’s election boat.

That said Palaszczuk is privately hoping the project goes ahead because of her genuine concerns for jobs in the regions.

She is at odds with her deputy Jackie Trad who is doing everything she can to sink the project.

FLOOD FAMILIES DEMAND ANSWERS

BRISBANE families hit by flash floods whenever there is a decent downpour have invited Brisbane’s new Lord Mayor, Adrian Schrinner, to inspect the danger zones in Clayfield, Nundah and Toombul.

“We invite you to join us to inspect the landscaping that masquerades as flood mitigation so you will have a first-hand knowledge of the work undertaken,” say 20 families who signed the letter under the banner of the Clayfield flood action group.

New Brisbane Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner. Picture: AAP/Richard Walker

They told the mayor flooding increased dramatically after the $4.8 billion Airport Link twin tunnel project was constructed.

They believe flood mitigation measures approved as part of the Bligh government project were not properly carried out.

“How did these plans get through the Brisbane City Council approval process,” they asked Schrinner.

I think it’s a fair question. A City Hall spokesman says the mayor is waiting for a response from Airport Link owner Transurban about the approvals before responding to the action group.

IRRITANT OF THE WEEK

BUNGLING Bill Shorten, who conveniently forgot Labor’s $30 billion superannuation tax plan. The blunder came in the same week he attempted to hide the $60 billion cost to the economy of the ALP’s climate change policy.