Royal North Shore Hospital unable to cope with patient influx ahead of winter, say health sources
Hospitals in Sydney’s north are already under pressure before flu season has even kicked in, as health boss says system is built to cope if demand spikes.
Manly
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Royal North Shore Hospital is regularly unable to cope with the increasing number of patients wanting treatment, according to multiple health sources.
As a result patients are being diverted to other hospitals which are feeling the strain, it is being claimed.
An insider from Northern Beaches Hospital, who cannot reveal their identity for fear of repercussions, said that several times in April and May patients that would normally have gone to Royal North Shore Hospital have been brought to the Frenchs Forest site or other hospitals in the district, which are Ryde and Hornsby hospitals.
“Royal North Shore is often full to the brim,” the staffer said.
“It’s happening every week
“And we are under the pump because of it.
“You expect this sort of thing to happen in winter, not now, so early in the season.
“Flu season hasn’t even kicked in.
“It doesn’t bode well for the winter.”
In a statement Northern Beaches Hospital confirmed that it was regularly getting more than 200 plus patients in Emergency every day, not counting those coming in for COVID tests.
Chris Kastelan, President of the Australian Paramedics Association (NSW) said his members had seen an increase in demand across Sydney and paramedics were “fatigued and exhausted”, sometimes working up to 14 hours a day without a break.
He said ambulances on the northern beaches and north shore were, at times, waiting to unload patients at hospitals, including Royal North Shore, for up to two to three hours because no beds were available.
“It’s concerning because the patients are not receiving the definitive care in ED that they should,” he said.
Mr Kastelan said because ambulances are all stuck at Royal North Shore, when they eventually unload their patient they may get a call somewhere like Bayview or Church Point which is 30 to 35 minutes away in heavy traffic.
He said Northern Sydney Local Health District was not coping with the current situation.
“It’s not working,” he said.
“We are concerned the delays are ongoing and there doesn’t seem to be any contingency plans in place.”
A spokesman for NSW Ambulance said it had “recently experienced moments of high volume and we thank our paramedics for their hard work during this time”.
He said the service was planning to deploy 100 new paramedics quicker than planned as a result.
“In 2020/21, the NSW Government is investing more than $1 billion in NSW Ambulance including $27 million for 180 new staff, the third tranche of the 2018 commitment to recruit 750 more paramedic and control centre staff over four years,” he said.
“To help meet increasing demand, NSW Ambulance will soon deploy 100 of these paramedics earlier than planned.”
Despite repeated requests, Northern Sydney Local Health District declined to answer any questions about how many ambulances Royal North Shore accepted per hour during April and May or whether the quota was altered due to pressure in the system.
It also refused to respond to questions on whether the NSW Health Patient Allocation Matrix had been changed during that period. The Matrix determines the nearest, most clinically appropriate Emergency department for all patients arriving by ambulance.
The algorithm uses several measures including hospital capacity and recent ambulance presentations to decide where best to take a patient.
In an official statement a spokesman for NSLHD denied that ambulances had been “on bypass” during that period, which is when an Emergency Department instructs ambulances to divert elsewhere.
The Manly Daily asked for emergency patient figures for Royal North Shore in April and the early part of May. They were not provided. Instead the official statement gave statistics from last year.
The spokesman said, “hospitals are seeing an increase in people presenting with flu-like and respiratory illnesses, which is not unusual given the time of year, as well as long term chronic and complex conditions.
“There is no specific reason or factors that have been attributed to this.”
At a recent press call for another event, the Manly Daily managed to speak to Deborah Willcox, CEO of Northern Sydney Local Health District, directly.
She explained “the system expands and contracts as the demand requires”.
“There are days when it is extremely busy and then things settle down again.”
She said “everyone knows what the plan is, there’s a clear path of escalation”.
She blamed smoke from the hazard reduction burns for a recent rise in respiratory issues.
When asked whether Royal North Shore Hospital had been “full” during that period she said: “I don’t know what the definition of full is”. When asked whether there were “no beds” at any time, she said: “That would not be a definition I would ascribe to Royal North Shore”.
A spokesman for Northern Beaches Hospital said: “Hospitals across NSW including Northern Beaches Hospital work together and with NSW Ambulance to meet fluctuating demands across the system.
“Northern Beaches Hospital is currently treating on average more than 200 patients a day through the Emergency Department.”
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