Hotel bandaid offered after record ramping high
South Australians spent more than 5800 hours on the ramp in July, and the Australian Medical Association said the government’s latest hotel solution isn’t going to cut it.
July marked the worst month on record for ambulance ramping, with 5866 total ramped hours across metro hospitals.
This is up 9 per cent from June, and about five times more than the hours ramped in July 2018 under the former Marshall government.
Ambulances responded to 68 per cent of priority one emergency calls within eight minutes, exceeding its target timeframe of 60 per cent.
For priority two, ambulances responded to only 54.2 per cent of urgent calls within 16 minutes, falling short of its target timeframe of 90 per cent.
Health Minister Chris Picton said the record high aligns with July’s peak in flu cases, which were the worst in six years.
So far this year, there have been more than 18,000 flu cases, and more than 2000 of them were recorded in a single week in July.
On Saturday, the state government announced it would double the size of the Pullman’s transitional hotel health service to reduce ramping pressure.
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From next month, 48 beds will be available across two floors of the Pullman Hotel, offering transitional care for patients who no longer require a hospital stay before transitioning to a more suitable setting.
Health Minister Chris Picton said the service has been “a huge success” since opening in February, hosting 200 patients and discharging 180 of them.
“That’s better for them and better for the health system – freeing up more than 4000 bed days in our public hospitals for others requiring acute care,” Picton said.
He also pointed to 280 metro hospital beds being held by elderly patients waiting for aged care beds that are the responsibility of the federal government.
The state government has proposed 10 recommendations for the federal government to unblock aged care and free up state hospital beds, four of which require federal funding commitments.
Amplar Health Chief Executive Robert Read, the service partner of the government’s Pullman service, said the expansion is an example of “thoughtful investment in out-of-hospital models”.
But Australian Medical Association president Peter Subramaniam said expanding transitional care services at the Pullman “is not a sustainable or comprehensive solution for South Australia’s healthcare system”.
“Hotels are not hospitals,” he said.
“Subacute care facilities provide short-term relief by creating extra capacity for patients ready to leave hospital, but they are not a substitute for robust, systemic investment in public health infrastructure and workforce.”
The AMA want to see “smart investment” in the medical workforce, to boost hospitals, rehabilitation centres and general practice capacity ahead of the March election.
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“The government must ensure skilled doctors and healthcare workers are available where patients need them most and that these doctors are supported by the necessary administrative staff and processes to do their jobs efficiently,” Subramaniam said.
Ambulance Employees Association (AEA) said it is receiving increasing reports of sickness, fatigue and burnout among its union members.
“When so much time is spent ramped, our ambos are unable to take restorative breaks during fatigue-inducing work,” AEA General Secretary Paul Ekkelboom said.
“They deserve so much better than what the Government, which committed to fixing the ramping crisis, is currently delivering for them and their patients.
“When every second matters in a medical emergency, it is simply unacceptable to have our ambulance clinicians ramped for hours on end, unable to respond to the community.
“If something doesn’t change, we will continue to see increases in ambulance ramping and even longer delays in ambulance response times, which we know puts community safety at risk.”
Picton said the state government is “looking at every opportunity to safely expand our bed capacity, reduce pressure on our EDs and provide patients with access to high-quality care”.
The government will also add 180 beds across the system over the next six months, including 110 new mental health beds at the Queen Elizabeth, Noarlunga, Flinders, Modbury and Mount Gambier hospitals.
The Opposition has proposed a free flu vaccination period and cutting payroll tax for GPs.
In Tarzia’s budget reply, he said the Opposition would also introduce a GP after-hours trial to keep people out of hospitals.
Shadow Health Minister Ashton Hurn said the data is a failure of the Malinauskas government to deliver its number one election promise.
“The data shows the problem is worse than ever on its watch – with the hours now double what it was under the former Liberal Government,” Hurn said.
“Labor has doubled the ramping crisis it was elected to fix – and when ramping doubles, so too does the impact on patients and frontline health workers.”
