No doctor working at Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital’s emergency psych unit after 10.30pm

Some of Queensland’s most vulnerable have been left exposed at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital’s psychiatric emergency unit for more than a decade.

Queensland’s biggest hospital has no doctor working at night in the psychiatric emergency unit and distressed patients are often left to lie on the floor or on couches due to “bed block” – and this has been the horror story at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital for years.

While demand for mental health care surges in the night hours, there is no psychiatric registrar rostered from 10.30pm until the morning shift.

Veteran clinical nurse Nat Karmichael has reported that during his 13 years at the Psychiatric Emergency Centre (PEC) there has not been 24-hour psychiatric registrar coverage, but with the escalating demand the situation has become untenable.

No beds have been added to the service since it opened almost 20 years ago.

While Queensland Health has told The Courier-Mail that a psychiatric registrar will be available around the clock within weeks, Mr Karmichael has questioned why repeated requests for three years for night-shift staffing have been ignored.

Health Minister Shannon Fentiman. Picture: Dan Peled/NCA NewsWire

He reports night-shift staff often fear patients will not wait until morning to see a doctor and go back on the streets and harm themselves or others.

“Many of the clientele have a history of anti-social behaviour with a criminal or forensic background,” he said.

“This means the average person coming to the PEC for mental health support witnesses aggressive, intimidating behaviour. They become too afraid to return for assessment.”

The whistleblowing nurse has exposed many problems at the PEC to the ABC, which sparked the promise of an $8m upgrade from Health Minister Shannon Fentiman.

“I welcome the minister’s investment. I have found her to be helpful but find it frustrating that my emails to management have been ignored,” he said.

“The mental health managers in the administration area I imagine will have a say in where the $8m will be spent.”

Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital

“This is the problem, these are the managers that have refused to respond to my emails or have never worked in PEC.”

A Metro North Health spokesman said the state government had been investing to meet demand.

“The 24-hour registrar model has been under way for some time but required planning and consultation to bring to fruition,” he said.

LNP health spokeswoman Ros Bates said PECs at busy hospitals “shouldn’t be shutting up shop overnight because of Labor’s catastrophic failure to resource and run them”.