2023 was the deadliest year on Australia’s roads in more than five years. The Royal Australasian College of Surgeons says rising road fatalities and injuries are reducing access to elective surgery.
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00:00 We do see a large amount of trauma every single day presenting to all hospitals across Australia.
00:10 And there has been approximately a 20 percent increase in road fatalities through the end
00:18 of 2023. And latest statistics have demonstrated a steady rise to the back end of last year.
00:26 Now, the impact on that obviously is quite drastic and significant for those families
00:32 affected. But alongside the fatalities, there are many, many patients who are injured on
00:37 the roads, and then they require to be treated in the hospital.
00:41 Each hospital has a set number of intensive care unit beds. It has a set number of theatres.
00:49 And therefore, if there is more emergency work, more trauma to be done, then something
00:55 has to give. And often in these cases, it's the elective surgery in these hospitals that
01:00 gives.
01:01 Right. It's a really difficult one. I mean, how do you prioritise? I guess it's by what
01:07 is an emergency and life threatening.
01:09 Yeah, that's right. So all hospitals will have a structure to manage emergency demand.
01:16 But if the emergency demand increases, then eventually then other cases have to be cancelled.
01:23 And it's not unusual for us to have to cancel elective surgery in order to get the emergency
01:29 surgery done.
01:31 If somebody has a car accident, it's not a single -- it's often not a single surgery
01:36 that's required. A patient may have multiple injuries, such as head injuries, neck injuries,
01:43 abdominal injuries and limb injuries. And they will all require time in the operating
01:49 theatre and time in the intensive care unit. These patients can often be in theatre all
01:53 day, go to the intensive care unit for another 24 hours or 48 hours, and then return back
02:00 to theatre for further surgery.
02:04 I mean, I'm wondering what the answers are here, because obviously what you do and what
02:09 you want to do is save people's lives. I mean, are there centres in Australia where it's
02:15 just for elective surgery? I guess you can't split the expertise like that, can you?
02:21 It is. Most hospitals will take a mix. Some hospitals will take more elective surgeries
02:26 than they do trauma. But on the whole, most hospitals have a mix of both.
02:31 What does it impact? Does this all have the increase in road collisions and the number
02:36 of people being admitted with emergency trauma have on your workload, your and your colleagues'
02:42 workloads?
02:43 Well, the workload is fairly intense. What we have to do is ensure that we have enough
02:51 staff. It's certainly been particularly difficult over the Christmas period. In my own unit
02:56 in Brisbane, we have a bed base of 52 beds, and we had in excess of 26 patients above
03:10 that 52 bed base who were boarded out across the hospital. And that's at a time period
03:15 when we are not carrying out a huge amount of elective work. There is just a large volume
03:19 of trauma going to and being managed in public hospitals.
03:25 And while you can call it elective surgery, things like a hip replacement or a knee replacement,
03:30 and yes, it can be delayed perhaps by a week or two weeks, that can have implications for
03:37 the person who is waiting for that surgery, can't it?
03:41 Yeah, well, all patients have their condition categorised, and those who are in significant
03:49 pain and significant difficulty may need to be reassessed if there is delay for their
03:53 treatment.
03:54 I was going to ask you what you would like to see, what would you call for if you could?
03:59 I guess one of the things is that we're all much safer on the roads, that we all take
04:03 more care.
04:04 Well, I think that's a very, you know, that's where we should all start, and that's a very
04:10 good point, is that the fact that we are often rushing around from A to B, if we take that
04:15 extra bit of care and try and slow down, then we may avoid a collision. But there are many,
04:21 many factors that we don't fully understand involved in crashes. It could be drugs, alcohol,
04:30 speed, behaviour, road conditions, lighting conditions, all sorts of factors. One of the
04:37 things that we have recently become aware of, alongside many other groups involved in
04:46 road safety, is the access to data. There is data available at states and territory
04:51 level on road crashes, but that data needs to be available and matched with injury-related
04:58 data so that we can analyse exactly why and where the crashes are occurring, so that we
05:04 can put in some preventative measures. That would be a huge step forward for the country
05:10 in trying to reduce the road fatalities, which at this point stand in excess of 100 a month.
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