All of Adelaide’s metropolitan hospitals were at “code white” last night, according to both the South Australian Salaried Medical Officers Association and the Ambulance Employees Association (AEA).
Code white is SA Health’s highest rating for the level of pressure on a hospital, indicating services and patient safety could be compromised.
The northern hospitals doing it tough but whole system in code white even kids hospital – significantly overcapacity – @SAHealth https://t.co/WXjEfnCwTt
— SASMOA (@sasmoa4doctors) April 11, 2022
Similarly, the South Australian Ambulance Service (SAAS) has declared its highest escalation status – “Opstat White” – every day since Wednesday, April 6, according to the AEA.
The status means the ambulance service’s “operational capacity, capability and/or resources are insufficient to maintain effective service delivery for high acuity cases”.
Ambulance Employees Association industrial officer Josh Karpowicz agreed the hospital system was still in a “crisis” and said the SAAS was now implementing surge measures – such as “rationing” ambulance crews – to deal with the current wave.
He said there was “significant ramping and ED overcrowding” on Sunday although did not have specific figures about the number of ambulances stuck on the ramp.
“The delays and impacts to ambulance availability in the community due to ramping is still occurring, and the impacts to patients having to wait at the doors of hospital are still occurring,” he said.
“That’s significantly worse in the last week or two due to the current COVID outbreak.”
He attributed the most recent surge to the number of staff knocked out of the workforce with COVID-19 and the state’s “tight” hospital capacity.
“We are going to see these issues continue even once COVID disappears,” he said.
“We’ll still see ambulance delays, we’ll still see ramping as well until that structural bed capacity is built into our hospitals.”
Karpowicz said he has been made aware of an ambulance crew which was ramped at the Lyell McEwin Hospital for 3.5 hours on Sunday withxjmtzyw an elderly patient.
He also said another crew over the weekend was caring for an assault victim that was transferred from the Royal Adelaide Hospital to the Queen Elizabeth and back again due to bed shortages.
The AEA, which ran a sustained and targeted $400,000 pre-election campaign against the former Marshall Government, highlighted four patient who died waiting for an ambulance in the lead up to an election.
