Patient stuck for five nights in ED due to lack of suitable mental health beds
South Australian hospitals face another crisis as patient's five-night emergency department ordeal exposes critical shortage of mental health beds.
A mental-health patient was stuck in a hospital’s emergency department for five nights – believed to be a national record – because of a lack of suitable beds, as the Australian Medical Association releases a devastating report on such patients being left in ED limbo.
The clogging of EDs by patients with nowhere appropriate to house them continues to exacerbate ramping.
The patient, a 46-year-old woman who the Sunday Mail has identified but will not name to protect her privacy, was taken to the Flinders Medical Centre on October 31 and spent the next five nights in the ED.
After contacting the Sunday Mail, the woman says a nurse came to her and said “Good news” and she was moved to a short-stay unit.
The woman candidly admits to her mental-health struggles, but says no one should be caught in the nightmare of an endless night in the ED.
“It was a nightmare without end,” the woman said.
“I could see no way out and thought this is how it ends. The public needs to know this is what can happen. ”
Acting Southern Adelaide Local Health Network chief executive Wayne Gadd said: “We apologise to the patient for the long stay in an emergency department bed while waiting for a ward bed, as Flinders Medical Centre experienced high levels of demand for mental health services.
“Clinical staff work hard to provide the best possible care for patients at all times.
“We are looking forward to the opening of an additional 48 beds at Noarlunga Hospital next week, that will include an additional 24 mental health rehabilitation beds and 24 acute medical beds.”
The woman’s story emerges as the Australian Medical Association says other patients in South Australia are spending up to 35 hours at a time stuck in EDs, longer than anywhere else in the country.
The AMA’s Public Hospital Report Card: Mental Health Edition 2025 shows patients admitted to SA’s public hospitals with mental-health-related conditions during the 2023-24 financial year waited an average of 11 hours and 18 minutes in overcrowded EDs – a 70 per cent increase over the past decade.
One in 10 patients was kept waiting 35 hours and 46 minutes, longer than any other Australian state or territory.
It comes as latest SA figures show ambulances were ramped in carparks for almost 4000 hours in October, one of the worst results on record.
AMA state president, Associate Professor Peter Subramaniam, says the long waiting times are “completely unacceptable”. “Vulnerable people in acute mental distress are being left in brightly lit, noisy emergency departments for far too long … because there is simply nowhere suitable for them to go,” he said.
“The people represented in the AMA’s report are not just statistics; they’re real people … who are being failed by a system that continues to show signs of immense pressure.”
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Originally published as Patient stuck for five nights in ED due to lack of suitable mental health beds
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