Many doctors believe patients could die as a result of overcrowding in South Australia’s public hospitals, an audit by The Salaried Medical Officers Association has found.
The association audited hospitals including the Royal Adelaide, Queen Elizabeth and Lyell McEwin after its members complained of dangerous working conditions.
It returned several findings including junior doctors working 140-hour fortnights and hostility between doctors and nurses, with rising stress levels and plummeting morale.
Association president David Pope said the overcrowding crisis was the worst he had ever seen.
“It’s certainly true that all our staff at the hospitals, especially in the emergency departments are at breaking point and patients are being put at real risk because of the situation that exists at the moment,” Dr Pope said.
However he said the most worrying finding was the fear amongst doctors that people could die in overwhelmed hospitals.
“The problem with doctors not being able to access the patients, not being able to undress patients, is that we misdiagnose things. If you miss an important diagnosis, you die from it, it’s as simple as that,” he said.
“If you can’t get the appropriate treatment because there’s not enough staff to deliver that treatment, then you die from it.
“If you can’t access the hospital beds and the specialist services in a timely manner, a lot of these things are very time critical, then you either die from it or you suffer avoidable, very serious long-term consequences from it – it’s that bad.”
Dr Pope confirmed mental health patients had reportedly been forced to wait more than five days in the Queen Elizabeth Hospital emergency department without a shower until a bed in a psychiatric ward became available.
He said it had also been documented some mental health patients had been shackled to beds or chemically restrained to protect staff and other patients in the emergency department.
“That’s been documented and I think it is well accepted by SA Health that those things are occurring all the time across most of our hospitals,” Dr Pope said.
“At Lyell McEwin, where I work, there’s been patients in that hospital for over six days waiting for mental health beds.
“It’s completely unacceptable, it’s very bad for those patients because instead of getting better, they’re getting worse and it’s blocking access for all patients who need those acute services.”
Health minister ‘disturbed’ by audit’s findings
Health Minister Jack Snelling said he was concerned by the audit’s findings.
“I certainly accept the assessment that our emergency departments are probably the busiest that they have ever been,” Mr Snelling said.
“I’m very disturbed at the allegation that patients’ safety in any way is being compromised and I want to speak to David about that.
“I certainly do accept that mental health patients wait unacceptably long periods in emergency departments, waiting to be admitted to acute mental health beds.
“It’s a source of incredible frustration to me that despite all the reforms we’ve been through mental health we still have a situation where mental health patients are sometimes having to wait days, and certainly having to wait much longer than other patients for admission into an acute bed.”
Mr Snelling said another contributing factor was the fact the state’s private hospitals were also full.
“Our private hospitals are all full and I think that is basically a symptom of the worst flu season we’ve had since the swine flu epidemic in 2009,” Mr Snelling said.
“Obviously if the private hospitals are presented with a case that they can’t deal with well then they have no choice [but to refer patients to public hospitals], but we have been in discussions with the private hospitals to try and keep those referrals into our emergency departments to a minimum.”
Dr Pope said the association was willing to work with the Government and the minister to find a solution, but ultimately believed more beds needed to be opened.
“We have to create capacity by opening up beds in the system and it’s very important that we get mental health patients out of emergency departments and into appropriate places,” Dr Pope said.
However, Mr Snelling said there was “no one solution” to the problem.
“I think it’s too simplistic an answer ‘just open more beds’,” Mr Snelling said.
“One of the most important things we need to do is get better patient flow through our hospitals and that requires a number of changes.”
Mr Snelling said these changes included looking at efficiencies in elective surgery and discharging patients on weekends to avoid “clogging” up the system early in the week.
Adelaide callers vent their frustrations at health system
Doug from Ingle Farm called into ABC Adelaide 89, concerned by the fact his wife was unable to get into a private hospital closer to home.
She is currently at the Flinders Medical Centre with a serious infection in her leg.
“It’s about 40km every time we want to visit her, so it’s not the best and it means that my wife’s number of visitors are limited because it’s so far for them to go,” he said.
Kate from St Peters has also experienced issues in the private hospital sector.
She was hospitalised recently and found it difficult to get the care she required.
“I’d actually rung [for a nurse] three times and waited 10 minutes every time because I was timing it,” she said.
“I was forced to use my mobile phone to ring downstairs to reception for them to ring up to the nurses station so I could tell them that I needed someone to come and take me to the toilet.”