Royal Adelaide Hospital overcrowding puts patients’ lives at risk, warn paramedics

Paramedics have warned of a ‘looming disaster’ after ambulances were unable to deliver patients to the Royal Adelaide Hospital.

Ambulances ramping at Royal Adelaide Hospital this week.

Paramedics have warned of a “looming disaster” within South Australia’s health system, after a record number of ambulances were unable to deliver patients to the $2.4 billion Royal Adelaide Hospital because of overcrowding.

At the peak of the problem on Thursday, 20 ambulances were “ramped” at the RAH — a term used when an ambulance is parked outside a hospital because there are no free beds to treat a transported patient. Another 11 ambulances were ramped at the Flinders Med­ic­al Centre in Adelaide’s south.

Ambulance Employees Assoc­iation secretary Phil Palmer said the “appalling” situation resulted in a “frightening shortage” of ­ambulance availability across the city. More than 100 hours of ambulance crew availability was lost.

“Lives were at risk and will be again,” he said. “When you take 31 ambulances out of the fleet, that’s more than half the number of ­ambulances available.

“Ambulances that aren’t ramped are working, picking up patients and doing patient care, and it leaves the community at times with zero ambulances and our members are telling us there was one of those occasions on Thursday.”

Mr Palmer said it was the “worst ever” case of ramping at the 880-bed RAH since it opened in September 2017 — 17 months late and $640 million over budget. The previous high of 18 ambulances ­occurred in November.

As previously reported by The Australian, inefficient patient flow, a flawed hospital design, and a lack of capacity at the RAH and across the broader metropolitan hospital network is behind the problem.

A discharge lounge, overlooked in the initial design, was introduced at the RAH last year in an attempt to ease overcrowding, while Health Minister Stephen Wade has said capital works could be needed.

Mr Palmer said it was hard to pinpoint the reason behind Thursday’s surge in demand.

“SA Ambulance and emergency departments are experiencing workloads that have remained at winter-peak highs, and we are fearful of the coming winter when workload will climb even higher and the risks to the community will escalate even more,” he said.

His members’ frustration had been compounded by a lack of paramedics.

The latest data shows overtime payments worth $660,000 are being made each fortnight, representing about 10 per cent of the total wages bill.

The union plans to ramp up its action in the South Australian Employment Tribunal in an effort to force the government to ­improve working conditions and ­increase employee numbers.

Mr Wade said ramping was “completely unacceptable”, but dismissed claims there were no ambulances available on Thursday.

Despite being in the role for ­almost a year, Mr Wade pointed the blame at the former Labor governme­nt, saying it would take years to “undo the damage” caused by its flawed policies.

“South Australians should feel confident that when they ring ­triple-0 they’ll be an emergency response,” he said.

“As the health system gets bette­r flow, as we get more beds back into the system, we will be able to cope with surges better.”

Nurses union secretary Elizabeth Dabars said overcrowding within the RAH’s emergency ­department and ramping were at “crisis point”.

“Implementing longer-term measures recommended to the minister last year to start addressing the issue needs to remain a critical focus,” she said.