Emergency doctors look at fix for Hobart’s hospital bed block crisis

The Australasian College for Emergency Medicine says doctors around Tasmania are under extreme pressure and patients are suffering because emergency departments can not cope with demand.

EMERGENCY doctors will hold a summit aimed at alleviating Tasmania’s hospital bed block – a crisis they say is contributing to as many deaths per year as the state’s road toll.

The Australasian College for Emergency Medicine is bringing forward a summit it had originally planned for later in the year, which will bring together key stakeholders to devise a “revolution” in health care.

“We need an access-block summit that involves as many of the key players as possible,” said the college’s faculty chair Dr Marielle Ruigrok.

Dr Ruigrok said doctors around the state were under extreme pressure and patients were suffering because emergency departments were not coping with demand.

“Access block is affecting all hospitals and it’s getting worse,” she said.

She said doctors estimated the problem was contributing to as many deaths as the state’s road toll – about 40 or more people a year.

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The Tasmanian branch of the Australian Medical Association also joined the call for action yesterday, following a report Royal Hobart Hospital emergency doctors have written to management outlining how bed block is injuring and killing patients.

AMA member Dr John Saul, a Hobart GP, said immediate action was needed to get more beds and more doctors into the RHH emergency department.

“The situation is getting worse. We don’t want people to panic, but something needs to be done – if you delay emergency patients being seen there’s increased risk of death.”

He said the latest AMA report card showed only 56 per cent of the most urgent category three patients in Tasmania were being seen within the recommended time of 30 minutes or under.

Dr Saul said doctors were under incredible stress trying to cope. “Good people are being stretched to their limits and beyond,” he said.

The State Government acknowledged that demand on emergency departments is increasing, with admissions to emergency departments around the state up by 21 per cent in the past three years.

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“This situation is not unique or isolated to Tasmania and there are similar demands and challenges in emergency departments across the country,” a government spokesman said.

The spokesman also said the Liberals were boosting funding to emergency by $5 million a year to provide better healthcare for patients and better support for staff.

The RHH executive was last week sent a five-page letter outlining registrars’ concerns about bed block.

The letter says patients in emergency are waiting as long as 170 hours to be admitted to a ward, there are too few southern ambulance crews and there was a need for more nightshift registrars.

Dr Ruigrok said emergency beds at the RHH needed to be immediately doubled.

“The RHH Emergency Department has 23 bed spaces, but they have 63,000 presentations a year – which requires 50 to 60 bed spaces.”

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She said last week, when all 23 beds were full, another 46 people were waiting for a bed – which meant demand for beds was 300 per cent of supply.

“You can’t work like that without staff being destroyed and without incident,” she said.

Labor MP Julie Collins said the state and federal Liberal governments had eroded funding to health in Tasmania, contributing to the crisis.

Greens Nelson candidate Deborah Brewer, who has previously worked in administration at the RHH, said pressure could be reduced on emergency departments through the creation of “urgent response centres” in outer urban areas and regional hospitals.

She said the first centre should be in Kingston and could operate in the new health hub area that at present will be providing allied health services, not urgent health services.

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