A TOUGH YEAR

PRESSURE ON OUR HOSPITAL

STATISTICS from a complex year at Townsville University Hospital’s emergency department reveal just how much of a challenge 2020 has been.

There have been 70,000 presentations at the department since January with presentations reaching an all-time high in March, immediately followed by the quietest month in April.

The record 8016 presentations in March, just before lockdowns, exceeded the post-flood record from the year prior as less than 5700 needed treatment in April.

Despite the high number of presentations, statistics reveal nurses and doctors juggled a diverse range of issues with only three conditions represented by more than 1000 presentations.

Emergency department director Dr Luke Lawton ( pictured above) said as a tertiary hospital, critically ill patients from all over the region present at the ED.

“We’re not just doing chest pain or respiratory illness or paediatrics, we’re doing it all and we’re doing it all at the same time,” he said.

“It’s like juggling balls but one’s a tennis ball, one’s a basketball, one’s a softball, one’s a rubber

bouncy ball and trying to smooth it out is difficult.

“On Monday, I went from dealing with an elderly patient who was very unwell with an unapparent cause, to dealing with a septic child, to dealing with trauma case, to dealing with someone who we might have thought was having a heart attack, all in the space of an

hour.” Recently, the ED has averaged 246 patients per day in August, 247 per day in September and 249 a day in October.

The department’s 70,561 presentations to October 31 is a decrease on the same period last year, but an increase on the 2018 numbers.

While COVID-19 is seemingly a

non-issue to most North Queenslanders, frontline health workers are still operating as though it exists in town.

Dr Lawton said staff are faced with the reality that it’s still possible for someone presenting with a respiratory illness to be diagnosed with the virus.

“In terms of where we are now,

if you look PRE-COVID versus no COVID is here, we’ve made all sorts of changes,” he said.

“One of our key priorities in factoring in COVID as a possibility is what we don’t want to do is mix someone who might have COVID with a bunch of people who don’t have it.

“We’ve had to streamline our department to have a safe plan to manage patients with a respiratory illness away from patients with other complaints like abdominal pain or trauma.”

April’s low numbers were likely a reflection of COVID lockdowns, with drivers of activity such as children’s sport and night-life shut down.