Surgeries cancelled as healthcare demand at RBWH blows out

Steven Miles has downplayed the fact Queensland’s largest hospital was forced to cancel surgeries after it ran out of beds this week.

• Winter blast: New Covid variant
• Virus outbreak: Cases surge

Premier Steven Miles has revealed 69 surgeries had to be rescheduled at Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital – Queensland’s biggest hospital – this week.

Soaring cold weather illnesses, trauma cases and interhospital transfers were the cause of the “extremely high demand for care” at the almost 1000-bed hospital, a Metro North Health spokesman said.

Mr Miles said the cancellations was business as usual and the hospital was capable of making the call to axe surgeries when over capacity.

Premier Steven Miles says the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital’s cancellation of surgeries was business as usual. Picture: Liam Kidston

He played down the situation, saying just 69 patients had been affected.

“It’s not actually that many,” he said.

“In fact every day our hospitals reschedule cases based on higher acuity cases.

“It’s not unusual, our doctors and nurses are very good at doing it, what was unusual was the surge of trauma (cases).”

Mr Miles urged Queenslanders to help hospital staff by driving safely.

“Don’t drink and drive, wear your seatbelt,” he said.

“It’s simple stuff. We all know this, but people will continue to speed, continue to drive dangerously and that is what the results of these awful trauma cases.”

A source told The Courier-Mail that all surgeries were cancelled except for emergency cases sent from the ED and that bosses were so desperate they considered setting up beds in administrative offices.

But the hospital spokesman said that on Tuesday the Metro North chief executive made the decision to reschedule elective surgeries at Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital for 24 hours where clinically safe.

“There were no hospital-wide delays to emergency surgery or clinically urgent surgeries.

“Any patients affected were contacted directly to rearrange their appointment for another convenient time as soon as possible.

“No patient requiring lifesaving clinical care will ever be affected by elective surgery cancellations,” the spokesman said.

Beds ran out at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital this week. Picture: AAP Image/Attila Csaszar

Pressure on the hospital continued when seven interhospital and air transfers arrived on Wednesday and 12 interhospital transfers arrived on Thursday — these transfers are required due to the specialist clinical services available at the RBWH.

On Tuesday 90 patients surged through the hospital emergency departments in a six-hour pressured stint for medical staff and facilities.

“Metro North Health has well-established systems in place to plan for and respond to peak demand, which generally aligns with winter,” the spokesman said.

“We see more patients presenting to our hospitals during the colder months with illness, and more patients needing hospitalisation for their symptoms. At times, it may be necessary to cancel non-urgent care for a short period of time, to allow staff to focus on more urgent patient care during unprecedented periods of demand. This ensures we can prioritise current inpatients, patients requiring emergency care and critical interhospital transfers,” he said.

Opposition Leader David Crisafulli said the cancellations were a result of poor resourcing and planning by the government, vowing to end “blame culture”.

“We’ve had Covid, we’ve had Canberra, now we’ve got car crashes,” he said.

“Queenslanders don’t want to see the state government always blaming someone. It can’t always be someone else’s fault.”

The RBWH, located at Herston in Brisbane, employs more than 9,000 multidisciplinary staff and provides an extensive range of clinical areas and is known for its cancer care, maternity, trauma and burns care.