‘Admitting patients in corridors’: RAH nurse lifts lid on overcapacity public hospitals
As an overcrowding crisis grips our health system, an experienced RAH nurse has revealed the horror routinely happening in the corridors of our biggest hospital.
SA News
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An experienced Royal Adelaide Hospital nurse has given a graphic insider account of the crisis gripping the health system saying, “I have never seen anything so inappropriate in my career.”
Her account comes as the embattled system remains under siege with EDs generally operating at overcapacity all this week, ambulances ramped and average wait times dragging into the hours.
At 3pm on Wednesday, ED clinicians were treating 386 patients despite official combined metropolitan capacity being 333.
“We are currently admitting patients into the corridors of wards,” the nurse told The Advertiser.
“There is no oxygen suction available in an emergency situation. There is full lighting that cannot be turned off. There is no privacy, no showers, only the public toilets available for these patients to use.
“Meanwhile we have wards full of patients admitted from nursing homes that do not need acute care but are deemed ‘too difficult’ for the nursing homes to handle.”
The nurse also revealed the RAH has become a de facto home for the homeless.
“We literally have people living in this hospital,” the nurse said.
“We have homeless patients, many homeless for years, but once admitted cannot be discharged until appropriate accommodation has been found for them which is virtually impossible.
“Therefore they, too, are living here.
“This is such an unethical, immoral, situation for those admitted to the corridors. I am sure the public would be horrified. It puts both the patients and the staff at significant risk.”
The description comes as the Ambulance Employees Association estimates ramping in June cost taxpayers $500,000, with this month on track to exceed last month’s near-record 5382 hours figure.
AEA state secretary Paul Ekkelboom warned paramedics, who were ramped for as much as 12 hours with sick patients, are now falling ill themselves.
He said the union “fears it is only a matter of time before this situation results in a catastrophic patient outcome.”
Pressure on frontline staff is part of the SA Salaried Medical Officers Association (SASMOA) stalled pay claim which may lead to industrial action amid fears fed-up doctors may move interstate.
SASMOA chief industrial officer Bernadette Mulholland said there had been “a massive failure of infrastructure and workforce planning.”
“SA Health’s own recent report into ‘Doctors Wellbeing’ described its own system as ‘broken’,” she said.
“That report highlighted workforce shortages, excessive overtime and unused leave, which was contributing to repercussions like ‘physical burnout’ and ‘occupational distress’.”
Opposition health spokeswoman Ashton Hurn said Labor promised to fix ramping but instead
“health staff and patients are seeing a system buckling under huge pressure and record ramping.”
Health Minister Chris Picton said: “South Australia finally has a government building 600 extra hospital beds to create more capacity and is hiring thousands more doctors, nurses, ambos and allied health workers.”
Originally published as ‘Admitting patients in corridors’: RAH nurse lifts lid on overcapacity public hospitals
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