Victoria’s public hospital system on verge of collapsing

Victoria overtakes NSW with the highest Covid caseload, as an ambulance ramping crisis sparks fears the state’s health system may not cope.

A video-grab showing ambulances queuing outside the Northern Hospital in Melbourne on Monday night. Picture: Twitter

At least 13 ambulances queued outside a Melbourne public hospital on Monday night waiting to admit patients to the emergency department in a sign the state’s health system may not cope if a predicted spike in Covid-19 cases eventuates.

The ambulance ramping issue emerged as Victoria reported a rec­ord 950 Covid cases and seven deaths on Wednesday. This followed yesterday’s 867 cases on Tuesday and the state’s Health Department attributed the failure to confirm another 149 cases from Monday and Sunday to a “third party software” glitch.

An extra 140 cases added to Monday’s tally bring that day’s caseload to 845, seeing Victoria overtake NSW, which recorded 787 cases on Monday and 863 on Tuesday.

Victorian authorities are desperately hoping increasing vaccination rates will see a similar turnaround in case numbers to that being seen in NSW, where as of Monday 61.7 per cent of those aged 16 and over are double-dosed and 86.2 per cent have had one dose, compared with 48.4 per cent double and 78.7 per cent ­single in Victoria.

The Northern Hospital in Epping – about 20km north of the CBD – was overcome with patients on Monday night, chief operating officer Debra Bourne said.

Ambulance ramping Northern Hospital Melbourne. pic.twitter.com/IkydGq0PKw

— dramynicho (@DrAmyNicho) September 27, 2021

“Yesterday was a very busy day in our emergency department, with 96 ambulance arrivals and 403 patients seen,” she said.

“The hospital is very busy as a Covid-19 streaming hospital – with three Covid wards plus our ICU. Currently, we have around 65 Covid patients in the hospital.”

Ms Bourne did not say how long patients needed to wait or whether they were to be seen for Covid-19.

In another sign the state’s health care system is buckling under pressure, it took nearly 13 minutes in one case for an emergency operator to respond to a ­triple-0 call on Monday night.

Emergency services telecommunications authority chief Marty Smyth said 3250 emergency calls were made for an ambulance on Monday, the second highest number after the thunderstorm asthma emergency in 2016 of 3452 calls.

“Since the pandemic, ambulance call demand has increased substantially,” he said.

“We are regularly seeing unprecedented numbers of calls.

“Levels which before Covid-19 were seen only on busy weekends are now almost a daily ­occurrence.”

There were 375 people in Victorian hospitals with Covid on Tuesday, including 81 in intensive care, of whom 61 were on ­ventilators.

Australian Medical Association Victoria president Roderick McRae said ambulances had been required to queue outside hos­pitals, known as ramping, sporadically over the past decade, but the pandemic had increased pressure on emergency departments and exposed a broken system.

“It has been occurring at many public hospitals acutely over the past three months. At the Northern, the most significant event (was on Monday night), although the Royal Melbourne hospital has had (between) 15 and 20 (at times),” Dr McRae said.

More than half of Victoria’s record 867 cases on Tuesday are located in the northern suburbs including 270 in Hume, 125 in Whittlesea, 88 in Moreland, 43 in Darebin and 24 in Banyule.

“Every emergency department is staggeringly busy. The staff are fatigued. They have not been allowed to have leave since lockdown number two,” he said.

Victorian Ambulance Union chief Danny Hill said ramping on Monday was a disturbing sign some patients with treatable conditions could move into the critical category if pressure continued to be heaped on hospitals.

“With limited resources in our health system, everyone is trying to do their absolute best,” Mr Hill told 3AW radio, but “we may not cope. It’s not going to be pretty.”