Aged-care homes offer bed solution
GOLD Coast Health services will move public hospital patients into nursing homes to get care if the health crisis continues, State Parliament has been told.
Health Minister Dr Steven Miles commended the city’s health services yesterday as the government came under continued attack for not planning to avert bed shortages.
“The Gold Coast also took clear action to help manage the demand,” Dr Miles said. “The HHS (Hospital and Health Service) opened 43 beds across their facilities that are normally not used for treating emergency patients.
“Extra nurses were called in and negotiations were undertaken with both private hospitals on the Coast and our colleagues in NSW who send critical patients from the Tweed to the Gold Coast.
“The hospital has also made contingency plans to move low-acuity patients to a local nursing home and free up hospital beds.
“These are complex and coordinated responses to a complex problem, but one thing remains simple – the inspiring commitment of our hard working staff.”
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said the Coast overnight on Wednesday had been stood down from code yellow, meaning the city’s public hospitals were no longer at capacity. They had reached boiling point due to a 10 per cent increase in demand for beds. All other hospitals in the southeast were later downgraded, the Premier said.
“We are delivering hospital upgrades to increase capacity by 500 beds in southeast Queensland, with the first new beds coming on line next year,” the Premier told Parliament.
The redevelopments were at the Logan and Caboolture hospitals and the Herston quarter, while detailed business cases would be launched for the Ipswich Hospital and a new Toowoomba hospital.
Deputy LNP leader Tim Mander yesterday asked the Premier “how many sick Queenslanders are being treated on trolleys, chairs and in corridors in Queensland hospitals”.
In her reply in Parliament, Ms Palaszczuk repeated that the Coast had been moved off a code yellow and 305 elective surgeries were performed between Monday and Wednesday.
Mudgeeraba MP and Opposition health spokesperson Ros Bates interjected, remarking that those surgeries “are all on Palaszczuk’s patio”.
The Premier was furious, and told the House: “I am not going to comment on that. You are so rude. You are disappointingly rude. We are talking about a serious issue.”
Ms Bates followed up with a question about a warning two weeks ago by Australasian College for Emergency Medicine president Dr Simon Judkins that Queensland Health patients were being exposed to inhumane environments.
“Why didn’t the Premier act on Dr Judkins’s dire warning over two weeks ago before the health crisis reached breaking point?,” Ms Bates said.
The Premier replied: “I am happy to look into the issue. As I have said in this House today, and I will say it again, all of the hospitals in the southeast are now off code yellow.”