A unit diverting less urgent patients away from Perth hospital emergency rooms has come under fire from senior doctors and the Australian Medical Association (AMA).
A trial of the “surge” unit run by St John Ambulance at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital is due to end next week, but the AMA fears it may be expanded to other hospitals in a bid to reduce ambulance ramping.
The heads of the emergency departments at Sir Charles Gairdner, Royal Perth and Fiona Stanley Hospitals have warned there will be lethal consequences if that happens.
AMA spokesman Dave Mountain said patient care was being compromised.
“Most of these patients were coming in already having seen GPs, and having already seen people in the community, so they’re going already to the same level of care they got in the community,” he said.
He said it resulted in delays in patient care.
“Even for the ones that haven’t got major problems, if they need to come back to an emergency department, their care’s been delayed for four to six hours, and then they just rejoin the same queue that they should’ve joined in the first place,” he said.
He said the units further fragmented health care system services, and completely ignored the underlying problem of a lack of capacity to deal with the work coming into hospitals.
But the WA Health Department said clinical outcomes in four cases highlighted as a concern were not affected by presentation at the surge unit.
In a statement, WA Health said the unit had seen over 450 patients since starting operations in early September 2015.
“A GP, registered nurses and SJAA paramedics at ASCU (surge unit) treat low-acuity patients in a safe environment while waiting to be transferred to a hospital when appropriate,” the statement said.
“This helps with the smooth flow of ambulances to EDs, reduces ambulance ramping and provides patients with appropriate care.”
The statement said the trial’s outcomes would be assessed.
“ASCU is one of a range of ramping reduction strategies introduced by WA Health this year,” it said.
“Any decision to implement an ASCU in the future will be informed by the assessment, and the performance of WA Health in relation to realise our commitment to stopping ramping.”