Top doc warns of hospital disasters
DOCTORS are warning of “never before seen” catastrophic scenes in overwhelmed Queensland hospitals with seriously ill patients waiting in emergency departments for more than a day before being admitted to a ward.
With more than 1100 patients in hospital with Covid-19 and that number predicted to rise to 1600 at the peak of the third wave, the president of the Australian Medical Association Queensland Maria Boulton said that urgent and decisive action was needed by Queensland Health to solve the “no beds” problem and critical staff shortages.
“The AMAQ has been asking for extra beds for months, it is going to take time to sort and the peak is only a month away. We have never seen things so bad,” Dr Boulton said.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk announced on social media on Tuesday that the government planned to bring in extra beds and move more health staff to the frontline but the AMAQ boss warned that for every 100 beds, 1000 staff were needed to man the beds.
The AMAQ also wants to see GPS being able to triage and screen Covid-19 patients to lessen the load on hospitals
Queensland had 12,748 bed across the state in the 2020-21 financial year.
“We have thousands of healthcare workers sick with Covid or isolating as close contacts. The downstream effect from that is catastrophic. I have spoken with emergency department physicians in different hospitals in Brisbane over the past week. They all say we are in crisis,” Dr Boulton said.
“They are not able to provide the care they normally would due to the strain on our EDS. Many of them are working on their days off. They are fatigued and are desperately worried about the potential to make a mistake. Our emergency departments at the moment are so busy and part of that is because there are no beds in the hospital,” she said.
Dr Boulton said during a recent visit to an ED she saw a woman who had a stroke being forced to wait for more than 24 hours to be admitted to the hospital.
“We are at crisis and something needs to be done. And we are looking for some decisive action from Queensland Health, particularly around resourcing GPS to triage and screen Covid patients to reduce hospitalisations.
“What makes Queensland different is that our booster rates are much lower than the rest of the country. We won the State of Origin but we’re losing the fight when it comes to booster rates. Of the deaths over the past six weeks, 97 per cent were over the age of 65 and 70 per cent were not up to date with their boosters,” she said.
“It is so important that everyone who is eligible for a booster gets that booster, and that we wear masks in crowded areas and indoors,” Dr Boulton said.