‘Super EDs’ impossible without bed-block fix
21/01/2015
Ms Vincent made comment in this story in InDaily regarding people who are forced to remain in hospitals after being declared fit for discharge, due to a lack of disability support:
‘Super EDs’ impossible without bed-block fix
Wednesday, 21 January 2015
Journalist: Bension Siebert
Adelaide | Emergency departments cannot operate properly – let alone take on more patients to become ‘super EDs’ – until perennial bed access problems on hospital wards are fixed, the Australasian College of Emergency Medicine says.
SA college Chair Tom Soulsby, who is also a senior emergency physician at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, told InDaily that a systematic failure to move mental health, aged care and disability patients through hospital wards quickly enough must be remedied before emergency care could be safely consolidated in just three EDs.
“All the EDs are struggling,” said Soulsby.
“(For example) we have ramping going on in the middle of summer in Flinders (Medical Centre).
“As it currently works, we could not take an increased number of patients.
“The major issue affecting all of the EDs … is access block – being unable to move patients to the wards.
“What needs to happen is not fixing the ED but fixing the hospital behind the ED.”
He said other problems, such as the slow turnaround of CAT scans and a lack of investment in Allied Health were also contributing to overcrowding in emergency departments. Overcrowding has been blamed for deaths at the RAH.
However he said the biggest impediment to the effective operation of emergency departments that the inability of large numbers of aged care and disability patients to be placed in the community once they no-longer need hospital care was.
“The single biggest thing is getting patients into aged care or disability,” he said.
Last year, InDaily reported that over five per cent of patients in hospital beds no-longer needed hospital care and were waiting for placement outside of hospital. SA Health was unable to provide updated figures by deadline.
Health Minister Jack Snelling said he agreed the movement of aged care and disability patients on and off of wards with appropriate speed would be a necessary improvement.
“Dr Soulsby raises some very valid points and the whole of transforming health is underpinned by our ability to move these patients better than we currently are,” Snelling said.
“We hope to have more to say about what we plan to do about this particular issue next month.”
Dignity for Disability MLC Kelly Vincent said the requirement for disabled patients to stay in hospital beds longer than necessary often had a devastating effect on their lives.
“To have someone has been declared fit a discharge languishing in a hospital bed not only takes that bed away from someone who actually needs it, it has a potentially detrimental effect on the recovery of the person currently using the bed,” Vincent said.
“If you are stuck in a hospital, surrounded by sickness, away from family, friends, your home, and many other things that give you a sense of identity, you’re less likely to be positive about your recovery.
“The government is paying exorbitant daily fees to keep someone in a hospital bed, when all they might require are a few home modifications, or a few hours of personal support to return to their home and their community, and get on with their lives.”
Link to the article on the InDaily site: http://bit.ly/15sWlS5
