Palmerston Hospital has made bed availability worse at Royal Darwin Hospital, says one of RDH’s most senior doctors

THE new Palmerston Hospital has made bed availability worse at Royal Darwin Hospital, says one of RDH’s most senior doctors

Crisis meetings over a shortage of beds were held on Tuesday morning as RDH struggles to meet patient demand. Picture: Thinkstock

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THE new Palmerston Hospital has made bed availability worse at Royal Darwin Hospital, says one of RDH’s most senior doctors.

“It (Palmerston Hospital) creates more demand in some ways,” said Royal Darwin Hospital emergency medical director Didier Palmer.

“It’s a different sort of hospital, it’s a hospital which is a stand-alone emergency department with some low acuity wards.

“Again we are trying to change these things and we are trying to reconfigure these things, but in fact we are worse of this year than we were last year.”

Dr Palmer spent Tuesday morning in crisis meetings discussing the lack of available beds at RDH ahead of the expected influx of patients over New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.

About 25 patients are already double bunked in the Emergency Department.

Palmerston Hospital ... the new regional hospital has made bed availability worse at Royal Darwin Hospital, says one of RDH’s most senior doctors

“We need more beds,” he said.

“As blunt as that, we are under bedded, everyone who knows anything about our system knows that we are under bedded.

“We are seeing about 10 per cent more patients than we did last year the hospital is completely full I’ve just come out of crisis meetings because we have no beds,” Dr Palmer said.

“We still have 20 to 25 patients who need a hospital bed in the ED and we are going to get 80 or 90 admissions today (New Year’s Eve).”

He said the current situation was being treated as an emergency but the lack of beds was a year round issue for the hospital.

“People will be double bunked in the emergency department. But we always cope which is something the system relies on in a way,” he said.

Royal Darwin Hospital ... crisis meetings were held on Tuesday morning to discuss the lack of available beds at RDH ahead of the expected influx of patients over New Year's Eve and New Year's Day

“It’s the whole hospital, we are putting patients in corridors because we just don’t have enough space in our system.

“That isn’t only at Christmas it’s right through the year but it’s worse at Christmas and new year.”

He said the hospital was unable to get more beds to deal with growing demand because of politics.

Despite Dr Palmer’s concerns that the Palmerston Hospital had made things worse for his staff Health Minister Natasha Fyles said it was a great asset.

“The Palmerston Regional Hospital is a great asset for the people of Palmerston and the rural area and we are seeing some of the services delivered out there helping Territorians greatly,” Ms Fyles said.

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Ms Fyles said she was aware of the bed shortage situation and working to gain more funding from the Commonwealth.

“It’s not as simple as putting on a bed, there needs to be the flow through, there needs to be the staff to support those beds,” she said.

She said the Health Department and Top End Health had been working on a clinical service framework to determine how best to address the issue.

“We need to stop people from getting sick we need to stop alcohol related trauma before it enters our hospitals but then we need to have those multifaceted services to support people,” she said.