STOP WITH EXCUSES AND FIX BROKEN SYSTEM
TWO months ago, the Bulletin published pictures of a woman and four men sleeping on the floor of the Gold Coast University Hospital’s emergency department. Staff were unable to attend to them or find a bed while others left in disgust. It was a normal day and free from the height of a major Covid outbreak. The situation was blamed on the “perfect storm” of Covid, aged care and GP referrals. The same line was trotted out this week to defend the health system’s ramping crisis, in which patients taken to hospital by ambulance are waiting up to seven hours for treatment.
Health sources and the opposition say exhausted paramedics are sleeping at stations and being stood down due to fatigue as they spend hours waiting to offload patients.
The LNP says the number of patients waiting 30 minutes or more in ambulances has almost doubled in 10 years.
In May 2021, the Gold Coast University Hospital was on a code yellow (no beds) for three days and late last year dozens of pregnant women were advised at the last minute that their births could not take place because of resourcing issues.
Bulletin investigations in recent years have also revealed frontline staff were working double shifts to cover roster shortfalls and sick leave, the city’s two public hospitals were well down on the national bed average, and nurses avoided public transport and stopped wearing uniforms because they were being abused and spat on by Covid crazies.
Those frontline heroes were rewarded with having to pay huge parking fees to greedy operators. Just to go to work, on average wages, to save the lives of strangers. Every day.
The government’s rhetoric about our emergency departments being in triage because of Covid, aged care and GP referrals is becoming white noise. Too many problems have been highlighted, for far too long, for today’s situation to be the fault of a “perfect storm”.
All the while, doctors, nurses, paramedics and administration staff – exhausted well before the worst health crisis in 100 years – continue to suffer. Patients taken to hospital by ambulance should not have to wait seven hours for treatment. Paramedics should not have to provide comfort for hours with them, because their heart tells them they should. Nurses should not be working double shifts because a workforce is strained, knowing if they don’t, their colleagues will be distressed further and patients ignored longer.
It is not a perfect storm to them, or their loved ones. It is a Category 5 cyclone and an excuse-riddled Brisbane is refusing to push the emergency button.