Health system pressures ‘escalate’ as ED presentations surge
Nurses warn the health system is not equipped to keep up with surging demand, with strike action planned for this Thursday morning.
New data shows that emergency department presentations have increased by more than 50 per cent in the past decade; the finding coming almost a year after 18 recommendations were handed down from Deputy State Coroner David White following the deaths of three ramped patients.
Anna Panella, Bernard Skeffington and Graham Jessett all passed away while ramped at South Australian hospitals between 2019 and 2022.
SA Health accepted 17 of the Coroner’s recommendations, and one in principle, with Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (ANMF) SA Branch’s CEO Elizabeth Dabars saying that the findings confirm the scale of the challenge facing the health system.
“The coroner’s findings laid bare the tragic consequences of a system operating beyond its limits,” Dabars said.
“This new data shows that pressure is not easing – it is escalating. The system is simply not equipped to meet the level of demand we are now seeing.”
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The proposed response included a pilot that would see ambulance staff take blood samples from patients waiting on the ramp, and plans to construct ambulance waiting areas adjacent to emergency departments for deteriorating patients unable to be admitted.
Dabars called the plans “fundamentally unsafe”.
“We firmly believe [the response] condones and permits corridor care,” she told InDaily.
“We support meaningful reform, but it must be reform that improves safety – not measures that shift risk or responsibility onto staff already working in unsafe conditions,” she said.
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SA Health met with the ANMF’s South Australian Branch and other unions last week following the release of the data.
“We would prefer to see further emphasis placed on solutions that actually address the problem – rather than approaches that seem to accept that there should be waiting areas, for instance, adjacent to emergency departments,” Dabars said.
“Efforts need to be made in making sure that the long-term vision is expedited as quickly as possible.”
Nurses and midwives at Flinders Medical Centre are due to walk off the job for 24 hours from Thursday morning over the issue.
Dabars said she would like to see a “genuine investment in capacity, staffing and safe models of care.
“What we find is that those senior staff are just not hanging on. We are in a nationally and internationally competitive environment, and we are not currently nationally competitive in terms of our wages and conditions.
“Patients deserve a system that can respond when they are at their most vulnerable.”
SA Health was contacted for comment but did not respond before deadline.
Liberal shadow Health Minister Jack Batty said the state government’s “record spending means nothing if frontline staff still feel the system is stretched beyond breaking point”.
“South Australians want fewer excuses and better outcomes for patients and staff alike,” Batty said.
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