Royal Hobart Hospital doctors say bed block ‘killing patients’

Emergency department doctors say bed block is injuring and killing patients — and they have offered Royal Hobart Hospital management “as many examples as desired” to back it up.

EMERGENCY Department doctors say bed block is injuring and killing patients — and say they can back up their view.

Doctors say they have offered Royal Hobart Hospital management “as many examples as desired” of the problem.

The RHH executive was this week sent a five-page letter outlining the registrars’ concerns and a list of recommended measures.

Patients in the Emergency Department were waiting as long as 170 hours to be admitted to a ward, there were too few southern ambulance crews and there was a need for more nightshift registrars, the doctors wrote.

The letter said without the measures emergency doctors staff anticipated “increased patient complaints, litigation and coronial investigations”.

“Extreme access block and ramping are having a devastating effect on our patients,” the letter said.

“We are unable to meet most national emergency department KPIs [including time to analgesia, inpatient review, ambulance off-loading, antibiotics], and there have been abundant cases of direct patient injury and death resulting from access block.

“System failures are also causing severe moral injury, physical exhaustion, emotional depletion and psychological trauma among our registrar group,” the doctors wrote.

“We anticipate substantial emergency registrar sick leave in the coming months due to illness, stress and exhaustion as a direct result of continued access block and the upcoming flu season.”

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An ambulance on its way to the Royal Hobart Hospital. Picture: RICHARD JUPE

Among the doctors’ requests were better escalation plans, more staff and a “clear and concise written declaration [saying] we will not be held individually responsible for any adverse events occurring during times of access block”.

Federal independent MHR for Clark Andrew Wilkie yesterday said the State Government urgently needed to spend more money on the health system.

He called on Health Minister Michael Ferguson to resign — if not, the Premier should sack him, Mr Wilkie said.

“It is 2019, we’re a capital city in one of the richest counties in the world,” he said.

“We have the wherewithal and we have the money: it’s the decisions of government, and only the decisions of government, that are causing the chronic underfunding of the public health system.”

A Tasmanian Health Service spokesman said hospital management had already written to staff acknowledging increased patient demand.

“Demand pressures do fluctuate depending on the number of patients presenting for care,” the spokesman said.

He added staff safety and wellbeing was a priority for the THS and following a recent patient death all staff were offered assistance and support.

The staff who wrote the letter had been invited to meet to work together on solutions.

The Coroner’s office this week confirmed it was investigating the death of a man in the hospital waiting area.

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