A Sydney hospital left a patient in its emergency department for almost six days, prompting condemnation from an expert in emergency medicine.
Details about the incident are scarce. But a hospital source said the patient was admitted to Blacktown Hospital’s emergency department on Wednesday evening the week before last.
The hospital confirmed the patient had been sitting in a recliner chair in its emergency department and was discharged at some time on Tuesday last week.
“This is absolutely extreme,” said Clinical Associate Professor Paul Middleton from Sydney University. “In 25 years working in hospital emergency departments I’ve never seen anybody stay for that long.
“The lights are on all the time. It’s noisy. There are wailing children, mental health patients, people pissed off with waiting and shouting; there’s trauma; there’s blood and there’s vomiting. It’s not a place to spend a long time. Patients don’t do well [in emergency].”
The hospital, citing patient confidentiality, declined to provide details about the patient’s illness. It said they had been treated while in the emergency department and been referred to hospital specialists.
Danny O’Connor, the CEO of the western Sydney local health district, said the patient was discharged after the hospital was satisfied with their progress.
Mr O’Connor also said the case “presented many social complexities” and that the hospital continued to care for patients who were unable to leave for “family or social reasons”.
But Professor Middleton said a ward was the only place for a patient in hospital that long.
“There are also alternatives to staying in hospital [such as refuges],” he added.
The Health Minister, Jillian Skinner, declined to comment.
“Our members are sick of being abused by patients who are facing major delays,” said Judith Kiedja from the nurses’ and midwives’ union.
The union advocates the government impose a ratio of one nurse for every three patients to maintain standards of care. Blacktown’s emergency department has often run at twice that ratio of nurses this fortnight.
Tanya Whitehouse, from the Macarthur Domestic and Family Violence Service, said she found the case baffling.
“If the patient was facing domestic violence or homelessness, they should have seen a social worker and been found a refuge,” she said.
A spokesman for the Family and Community Services Minister, Gabrielle Upton, said over the next three years the government would “invest a record half billion dollars to tackle homelessness across the state”.
This latest case comes after a fortnight of major delays at Blacktown Hospital, where between 40 and 60 beds have been closed for the holidays.
A dozen patients, half aged over 80, were waiting more than two days in emergency two weeks ago.
There were further delays last week. Paramedics waited for 17 hours to hand one patient over to the care of the hospital.
“If they’re closing that many beds it’s a potential for disaster,” Professor Middleton said.
Do you know more? jrobertson@smh.com.au