Covid staff shortages behind 12-hour wait at children’s emergency department

The boss of Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital has revealed what went wrong as wait times blew out to 12 hours overnight.

Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital asked sick kids and their parents to seek help elsewhere as wait times blew out to 12 hours overnight.

The hospital’s chief executive Bernadette McDonald has now explained what led to the emergency situation.

She said RCH, like the rest of the healthcare system, had been facing challenges for some time but staffing shortages and increased demand reached breaking point on Monday.

She said about 120 staff are currently unavailable to work each day due to Covid – either as a positive case or close contact.

“Those numbers have jumped up with this latest surge of Covid,” she told Today, adding that the hospital was also struggling to recruit new staff.

“Definitely workforce issues are contributing, otherwise we could open more beds, keep that flow going, have the capacity we need to do that.”

Covid cases in Victoria have been rising steadily since late October.

According to the latest update from the state’s chief health officer Brett Sutton on Friday, there were 26,971 Covid cases reported last week, an increase of 21.4 per cent on the previous week.

Royal Children’s Hospital CEO Bernadette McDonald said more than 100 staff were furloughed each day due to Covid. Picture: NCA NewsWire/David Crosling

Ms McDonald said the demand on the emergency department had not decreased as it would normally coming out of winter.

“It’s been a build-up. Last night was particularly difficult in our ED but what we’re experiencing is a really high level of acuity, really unwell children in our inpatient beds so we’re not discharging as many each day as we need to to keep that flow of patients moving,” she said.

“But also seeing quite a lot of patients coming who we would say are category four and five who could actually seek care in alternative places as well.”

More than 50 per cent of patients who arrived on Monday afternoon were triaged as level four or five.

A statement released by RCH shortly after 5pm warned wait times for these “less seriously unwell patients” would potentially reach more than 12 hours.

At the time, more than 90 patients were in the emergency department.

The Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne is under extreme pressure. Picture: NCA NewsWire/David Crosling

Ms McDonald said the backlog was cleared overnight and it was “absolutely safe” to bring sick children to the hospital on Tuesday, but asked parents to consider whether they needed the services of a specialist hospital, which is for “the sickest of sick children”.

As of 11.30am Tuesday, the emergency department status was “very busy”. There are three official levels: normal activity, very busy and extremely busy.

Ms McDonald said unfortunately the situation on Monday night could happen again, but she hoped as the country got over the peak of the latest Covid wave, staffing issues would subside.

She said the whole healthcare system was under pressure and other hospitals treating adult patients were dealing with a significant increase in Covid patients in addition to sick staff.

The total number of Covid patients in Victorian hospitals has increased three-fold since October 19, according to the health department.

At least seven elective surgeries scheduled at RCH on Tuesday were delayed.