Hospital pushes limits

Exercise helps ED ready for peak season

CAIRNS Hospital will start simulating massive influxes of patients to prepare its emergency department for its most hectic time of the year.

Six ambulances were ramped at the emergency department overnight on Tuesday with more than 50 per cent of the 190 patients who arrived at the department admitted to the hospital.

Ambulance ramping has been a chronic headache at the hospital. However, in anticipation of a hectic peak tourism season, Cairns and Hinterland Hospital and Health Service chief operating officer Tina Chinery said a planning exercise – a simulated “Code Yellow” – would be carried out later this month to help the health service plan better for coping with a patient influx.

In August last year, the ED treated an average of 196 people a day over a five-day period with up to 94 ambulances a day visiting the hospital.

“One of the things we’re looking at, working with the Queensland Ambulance Service, is saying if we did get a surge in patients, whether it be a multi-casualty event, or an unexpected influx, what would we do?” she said.

“That's an important part of the hospital, plans tested.”

The hospital’s latest Code Yellow – indicating an internal emergency due to a lack of resources – was called in lateMay following a failure of the facility’s integrated electronic medical records system.

The escalation code allows the hospital to mobilise additional resources to ensure that patients received appropriate to have these care in appropriate time.

Ms Chinery said the health service, which carried out regular simulations of other disaster scenarios, was yet to determine how frequently it would need to hold Code Yellow exercises.

Cairns Hospital cardiology director Dr Greg Starmer said 30 per cent of the patients who were currently being treated in the cardiac ward were tourists.

“It’s important that people know that, if they are sick, if they do have chest pains, you should feel confident that you’re going to be seen and treated around the clock,” he said.

“We do have the ability to come in and operate at any time, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”

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