South Australia’s peak doctors’ union warns the state’s health system would not cope with a local outbreak of COVID-19 as two major hospitals enter “major incident” mode due to overwhelming demand. 

Key points:

  • Elective surgeries have been postponed at the RAH and QEH due to capacity issues 
  • Patients are being transferred to other hospitals 
  • It’s the third month in a row a major incident alert has been triggered at the RAH

A “major incident alert” was triggered at the Royal Adelaide Hospital (RAH) and the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) this afternoon as staff struggled to cope with the pressure on emergency departments.

While the alert is in place, only urgent or emergency surgery will go ahead.

In an email to staff, Executive Director of Central Adelaide Local Health Network Brendan Docherty said the RAH and QEH had experienced a high level of demand on the emergency departments over the last 72 hours.

“In response to this, we have initiated a major incident alert to assist the network to manage this demand in a coordinated manner and to ensure we are operating in a safe environment,” he said. 

Health officials will be working to secure more inpatient beds in the public system and at private hospitals over the next 12 to 24 hours. 

“This will assist us to appropriately move patients from the emergency departments at RAH and TQEH and to ensure we have capacity for any patient requiring tertiary or quaternary care,” Mr Docherty said in the memo. 

“This is for general adult admissions and our mental health consumers.

“During the incident, we will only be seeing urgent or emergency cases from planned patients (elective surgery, medical treatments and procedural services).”

‘It’s the worst we have seen’: SASMOA

The SA Salaried Medical Officers Association’s (SASMOA) senior industrial officer, Bernadette Mulholland, said the state’s health system would not cope with a local COVID-19 outbreak. 

Ms Mulholland said more beds and clinicians are needed. 

“It’s disappointing that here we are again, and again, and again, it’s the same issues, the same problems, internal disaster, not enough beds, overflow of patient presentations,” she said. 

“This is not rocket science, we need more investment in beds and people and we need a plan, and we’re not just not getting it.

“It’s the worst we have seen.”

“[Staff] are saying it’s difficult, it’s demoralising, it’s hard to keep going in these sorts of environments, when you actually don’t see any improvement.” 

In the memo, Mr Docherty told staff the Incident Management Team is meeting every three hours to review and assess the progress. 

“We aim to get our services back into business as usual as soon as possible as we appreciate that calling a major incident can be disruptive for patients and our workforce,” he said. 

It is the third consecutive month a major incident alert has been triggered at the Royal Adelaide Hospital. 

The state government has been contacted for comment. 

Posted , updated