Outrage over RAH policy to treat patients in corridors
The state Opposition and the nurses’ union are calling for a review over patient treatment at the Royal Adelaide Hospital after a report found staff were being put at “major risk”.
The South Australian nurses’ union has lodged a formal report with SafeWork SA and is now calling for an urgent investigation into the use of corridors for patient care at the Royal Adelaide Hospital.
A call immediately backed by state Liberal Opposition leader Ashton Hurn, who said the latest report highlights the ongoing pressure facing staff and patients in the state’s stretched health system.
“Nurses say corridor care is not safe and on that basis we support their calls for a SafeWork SA investigation,” Hurn said.
“When the nurses on the frontline are saying this is a crisis that needs to be addressed, then the government must listen and act.”
It follows a recent SafeWork inspection of the Royal Adelaide Hospital on July 20, which the SA Branch of the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (ANMF) said raised serious concerns about the risks created by overcrowding at the new RAH.
The SafeWork report found that a new policy was put in place at the RAH Emergency Department where patients admitted to the wards would be placed in the corridor until a bed was available.
“This is leaving staff at major risk to their psychological safety by increased workload and no additional resources provided and moral distress of not being able to provide care to that patient in a safe manner,” the report reads.
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“Some patients… will be placed in the corridor that blocks a fire exit and access to an egress in the event of an emergency.
“There is no oxygen and suctioning in many of these areas where patients are kept.”
The report’s author – ANMF representative Tanya Newell – was “of the opinion that the PCBU [person conducting a business or undertaking] has contravened the WHS [workplace health and safety] legislation”.
The report did not say whether patients were being kept in the corridors at the time of the SafeWork SA visit to the RAH.
Health and Wellbeing Minister Blair Boyer refuted the claims, saying emergency departments were under increased pressure across the country.
“Since 2012, emergency department arrivals in South Australia have soared by more than 50 per cent, despite the population rising by just 15 per cent,” he said.
He said increased pressures in hospitals across the country meant “admitting patients to wards over census does sometimes occur when hospitals are working to discharge patients and get rooms ready”.
“It is used for short periods when clinically safe to get patients out of emergency departments and ready to move into a room as soon as it’s available,” he said.
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Boyer pointed to the coroner’s report on ramping that said a “cultural shift is required towards an appreciation that at certain agreed trigger points, wards being over census is less risky to patients than extremely overcrowded emergency departments”.
The coroner also described SA Health’s strategies to respond to ramping as “extremely comprehensive and well thought through” and said they represent “an excellent use of public funds”.
ANMF SA CEO Elizabeth Dabars condemned the practice, saying “corridor care is not safe care”.
“Patients deserve privacy, dignity and appropriate clinical environments, and nurses should not be expected to provide care in spaces never designed for inpatient treatment,” she said.
“What was once considered a last-resort response is increasingly being used to manage ongoing capacity pressures, and that is simply not acceptable.”
She added that the practice was becoming “increasingly normalised”.
“No patient should receive hospital care in a corridor because of systemic capacity shortfalls. Equally, no nurse should be forced to work in conditions that compromise patient care and place their own wellbeing at risk,” Dabars said.
ANMF has called on SafeWork SA to investigate the work health and safety risks posed by corridor care at the RAH.
The union also called for immediate action to reduce overcrowding, address staffing shortages and protect the psychological health and safety of nurses.
It comes after the latest ramping statistics for June 2026 were released, showing ambulances were ramped for 4770 hours.
This was down 11.1 per cent on June 2025, but up from 1030 hours in June 2018.
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