‘Crumbling system’: More sick Victorians endure 24-hour waits in emergency

The number of Victorians languishing in emergency departments for more than 24 hours has increased significantly, with doctors warning of a system that is crumbling.

Health performance data released on Friday shows that 3567 patients were stuck in emergency departments for more than 24 hours between April and June as they waited for an available bed – more than twice as many patients compared to the same period last year.

The latest health performance data shows a record number of Victorians presented to an emergency department over the past year.Credit: James Brickwood

Ambulance ramping also continues to be an issue, with just 62 per cent of patients being transferred from an ambulance to the emergency department within 40 minutes, well below the statewide target of 90 per cent.

Australasian College for Emergency Medicine president Dr Clare Skinner described the data as “a distress call from a system that is crumbling”.

She said no patient should be spending more than four hours in an emergency department and long waits could cause potential harm such as falls and delirium from the bright lights and noises.

“This overcrowding is terrible for patients and terrible for staff,” she said.

“The emergency department is designed to provide acute emergency care. It is a place for immediate diagnosis, it is not designed to provide longitudinal continuous care.”

She said a shortage of staffed inpatient beds was causing the issue.

While there was an increase in the number of patients stuck in the emergency department for more than a day, the median wait time for treatment continued to improve. Patients are now waiting an average of 17 minutes for treatment in the emergency department, compared with 25 minutes in the April to June quarter last year.

Health Minister Mary-Anne Thomas said a record of almost 2 million people had presented to Victorian emergency departments in the past year.

“That obviously creates challenges,” she said. “All of those patients need to be triaged and provided with the appropriate care. We know that there can be challenges at times to find a bed if a person does need to be admitted.”

Thomas said about 300 people with a disability were medically fit to leave hospital but unable to do so because their NDIS packages had not yet been approved. Some families were also unwilling to transfer their loved ones from hospital to aged care, which also put pressure on the availability of beds, she said.

But government investments – such as an expansion of the Victorian virtual emergency department and 27 new priority primary care centres – were alleviating pressure on emergency departments, Thomas said.

Ambulance Victoria is failing to meet its target of reaching 85 per cent of priority code-one patients within 15 minutes, with just 62 per cent of this cohort reached within the timeframe.

Victorian Ambulance Union secretary Danny Hill said this was the second-worst result in Ambulance Victoria’s history. He said slower response times reduced a patient’s likelihood of a full recovery, particularly when it came to cardiac arrest.

“It leaves people suffering for longer,” he said.

Hill said ambulance ramping remains a huge issue and more work was needed to get ambulances back on the road.

Opposition health spokeswoman Georgie Crozier said almost 10,000 people had dropped off the surgery waiting list and the government needed to reveal how many of them had died while waiting for an operation.

“I think every Victorian should be very concerned about these figures, which demonstrate that our health system still remains in crisis,” she said. “Far too many Victorians are remaining in pain and not receiving the care they need.”

There has been a decline in the median waiting time for “planned” or elective surgery, with patients now waiting an average of 35 days, compared with 40 days last quarter.

The number of people on the elective surgery waitlist has dropped from around 77,400 to 72,000 over the past quarter.

With Rachel Eddie

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