South Australia's Health Minister has ordered an urgent independent inquiry into allegations hospital bureaucrats are pressuring emergency department staff to prioritise unloading ambulances while there are sicker patients in waiting rooms. The SA doctors' union claims the demands are being made to reduce ambulance ramping and says some patients are dying as a result.
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00 For decades, Dr David Pope has been at the coalface of busy emergency departments.
00:07 The Lyall McEwen Hospital specialist says over the past year, some patients have been
00:11 left to die in waiting rooms.
00:13 "You're talking six, seven, eight hours and then dying of things like blood clots
00:21 that break off and cause sudden death, something that's very treatable."
00:26 Dr Pope says hospitals across Adelaide are facing increased pressure to reduce the amount
00:31 of time ambulances spend ramped outside emergency departments, which reached record levels last
00:37 month.
00:38 He claims that's resulted in bureaucrats intimidating doctors.
00:42 "The hospital managers will ring the staff in the emergency department, essentially demanding
00:48 that ambulances be unloaded when we've got sicker people arriving in the waiting room."
00:53 "This is a scandal that is one of the worst that we've seen in our state's history."
00:58 The suggestion has prompted the health minister to launch an independent review, headed by
01:02 clinical experts Dr Bill Griggs and Professor Keith McNeill.
01:06 "These allegations haven't been raised with me before and I'm therefore concerned about
01:10 them and hence taking this appropriate action to make sure that we can get to the bottom
01:14 of this matter."
01:15 But Dr Pope says he has previously raised concerns with Mr Picton.
01:19 He says an independent review is needed.
01:21 "So that staff can have their say about what's been happening and make sure that it ceases
01:28 to happen."
01:29 The head of SA Health says clinicians make difficult treatment decisions daily, especially
01:34 during the current period of high demand, but the sickest patients are always treated
01:38 first.
01:39 Robyn Lawrence says any allegations to the contrary are false.
01:43 [BLANK_AUDIO]