20 April 2021
In a shocking and potentially tragic indictment on South Australia’s broken hospital system, an 80-year-old man is fighting for his life after he suffered a cardiac arrest while ramped in an ambulance for four hours.
The man was taken to the Flinders Medical Centre at 11.30pm on Monday night with abdominal pain. After being ramped for four hours, he was finally taken into the emergency department where an ultrasound revealed he was suffering from a life-threatening ruptured Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm (AAA).
The man suffered a further two cardiac arrests in the operating theatre and is currently in a critical condition in the hospital’s Intensive and Critical Care Unit.
“It’s heartbreaking; if he had come in (from the back of the ambulance) at 11.30 it would have been a leaking AAA and maybe repairable,’’ a source told the ANMF (SA Branch). “But the ED was absolutely full to the brink last night.”
The incident follows a case last week where a 93-year-old woman with a suspected spinal injury was ramped outside the Flinders Medical Centre’s emergency department for more than six hours.
Only this morning 108 people were waiting for a ward bed in emergency departments across the city, with large numbers waiting between eight and 24 hours. Six people waited more than 24 hours, while the RAH had 12 mental health patients who had been in the ED for more than four hours.
This alarming figure is only just shy of the record set on March 30 this year when 118 people were waiting for a bed in emergency departments across the city, 11 for more than 24 hours.
“More people than ever before are now waiting such ridiculously long times for treatment … it has become a life and death situation,’’ ANMF (SA Branch) CEO/Secretary Adj Associate Professor Elizabeth Dabars AM said.
“The tragedy with the 80-year-old gentleman who suffered a ruptured Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm is it was entirely preventable. He needed urgent emergency treatment and instead he was left to wait in an ambulance for so long.
“The overcrowding at our emergency departments is at unprecedented dangerous levels. It is now a threat not only to people’s wellbeing but their very lives.
“The State Government simply must act now to alleviate the crushing burden on our under-resourced, under-staffed emergency departments or their own citizens risk paying the ultimate price.
“Continued inaction or further delay will leave them with blood on their hands.’’