23 March 2021
The Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (SA Branch) has grave concerns for the community’s safety as hospitals across the state continue to see unacceptably high numbers of people waiting for care in the appropriate settings.
“As of 8am this morning, there were 88 people across the metropolitan health system waiting for a bed, with 5 people forced to endure a wait of more than 24 hours for inpatient care. It is simply unacceptable,” said ANMF (SA Branch) CEO/Secretary Adj Associate Professor Elizabeth Dabars AM.
Similar figures were seen on Friday (19 March) and Monday (22 March) with 79 and 92 people respectively waiting to receive inpatient care.
“The levels of delayed and missed care that are happening across our hospital system are a ticking time bomb,” said Ms Dabars.
With the flu season fast approaching, the ANMF is extremely concerned that things will continue to get worse and waiting times could continue to escalate even further.
These waiting times are happening when there is no community transmission of COVID-19 and the flu season is yet to begin. We are genuinely concerned about the ongoing risk to the community if something isn’t done to address the chronic under-resourcing of our hospitals,” Ms Dabars said.
The community deserves a health system that can reliably provide them timely, high-quality care when they need it.
“It is clear that our health system is not able to cope. It is time for Premier Marshall and the Health Minister to show leadership and take action now.’’
“The Premier and Health Minister must take action now and provide the leadership that is desperately needed. If they fail to do so, the Marshal Government is putting lives at risk every day they fail to act safely and effectively to provide adequate care to the community,’’ Ms Dabars said.