Gold Coast University Hospital on day three of 'code yellow' as record numbers of patients attended emergency departments
Gold Coast University Hospital's emergency department is at crisis point, with a senior staffer saying it was leading to "inhumane ' care. FIND OUT WHAT'S HAPPENING.
Gold Coast
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GOLD Coast University Hospital (GCUH) is on day three of a ‘code yellow’ — with a nurse saying there’s no beds available and sick people are waiting in corridors for hours.
“There’s literally nowhere to put anybody. We need more beds, we need better procedures for moving people along and getting them faster access to a bed,” said the nurse, who did not want to be named.
"It's a dire situation."
When asked if sick patients were waiting in corridors, the nurse said “absolutely, it's quite common these days and often people are waiting hours and hours".
“Doctors are working to frantically discharge as many patients from the wards to free up beds, but when sick people are in corridors there’s no oxygen, no suction and no machines if their condition deteriorates. It's a real worry.
“We can’t stuff in anymore people in if we tried.”
A senior staffer said a lack of beds was a “massive drama” at GCUH, particularly as paramedics were ramped in corridors, often for hours, which meant they weren’t able to attend call-outs as promptly.
“If there’s an emergency in the community it means paramedics can’t get to them as quickly, there’s a real knock on effect and it’s a serious issue,” said the person, who did not want to be named.
“It’s also resulting in care that becomes a bit inhuman. People in their 80s shouldn’t be lying around in corridors.”
The staffer said Gold Coast’s public health system had been struggling to meet demand for emergency medicine for months, with nurses and doctors close to breaking point.
In some cases doctors were being forced to discharge patients from emergency departments (ED) in the middle of the night to free up beds.
“It’s been cooking for a long time,” the person said.
On Tuesday there were 514 presentations to ED’s at GCUH and Robina hospitals, this is down from the record 714 who presented on Monday.
According to Gold Coast Health spokesperson, GCUH is still on a code yellow but Robina is not. A code yellow declaration is made when a hospital is full and cannot meet public demand for the local area health service.
She said on May 10, 714 people presented to the emergency departments at GCUH and Robina hospitals.
“Around one-third of these required hospital admission, which placed a demand on bed capacity,” she said.
“On Monday GCUH reached a level 6.3 bed capacity, which is equivalent to a code yellow in other hospitals. This was caused by a surge in ambulance arrivals as well as the number of walk-in presentations.
“To meet this demand, we flexed bed availability between our two public hospitals as well as partnered with private hospitals.”
She said Gold Coast Health was one of the fasting growing health services in Australia and that public hospitals on the Gold Coast were “seeing more patients than ever before”.
“More people are choosing public hospitals over the private system, and patients are presenting with more complex, chronic health needs than ever before.”
During periods of peak demand, the hospital service is asking Gold Coasters to consider using 13 HEALTH or visit their GP if their health concerns can be treated outside the hospital setting.
EARLIER - RSV outbreak adds to chaos at Coast hospitals
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AN outbreak of a highly infectious respiratory virus that mimics COVID symptoms is causing chaos at the already stretched Gold Coast University and Robina hospitals.
The boss of the emergency department at the Gold Coast University Hospital (GCUH) said the demand since Christmas had been “unprecedented across a wide range of areas”.
Dr David Green said the 330 patients the ED averaged each day last year had jumped to about 360.
On Tuesday, a record 402 people presented to GCUH and this had a huge impact on wait times, with some patients waiting up to four hours for treatment.
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“We’re getting into 400 people per day and it’s extremely difficult which can lead to ED overcrowding, ambulance stacking and delays in getting beds upstairs.
“A lot of staff are quite fatigued and a lot of people are getting called back at night, they’re doing a great job. The public need to be aware that waiting times may be longer and to use the ED for emergency only.
“The biggest thing that affects us at the moment is that most GPs, which I can understand, are not seeing patients with respiratory illness or possibility of COVID and that impacts on us.
“That places a fair load on our department and unfortunately that’s made waiting times in the evening, especially for kids, a fair bit longer which we don’t like.”
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Dr Green said staff were also dealing with an “unusual” increase in the number of children presenting with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), the most common cause of bronchiolitis and pneumonia in young children under the age of 12 months.
It was affecting GCUH, the Queensland Children’s Hospital and all the hospitals in the southeast corner, he said.
Symptoms are similar to COVID, and include a runny nose, cough, fever and respiratory distress, so Dr Green said most patients who presented were swabbed for COVID.
Dr Green said the infectious nature of the virus was also affecting workloads at Gold Coast hospitals, with staff who work in the area where RSV is common at risk of getting sick and having to take leave.
“We’ve seen a lot of change in our respiratory virus presentations due to COVID. For example, we haven’t seen much flu at all due to the hand washing and isolation during sickness.”
Dr Green suggested residents consider visiting procedural GPs for general or minor complaints such as stitches, plaster casts and X-rays if facilities were available onsite to help ease the workload and wait times.
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