Recently, The Royal Children’s Hospital (RCH) experienced a disappointing incident – a patient remained in the Emergency department for more than 24 hours.
RCH Director of Emergency Medicine, Dr Ed Oakley, says a breach of this nature hasn’t occurred for over a year and the hospital is taking the incident very seriously.
“When families arrive at Emergency they expect prompt care for their child. Despite the best efforts of staff, we can’t always ensure patients are seen by a doctor or progress to a ward bed in a timely manner,” he said.
“This is not great care from our perspective, and it’s certainly not great care from the perspective of the patient and their family.”
Dr Oakley says Emergency doesn’t operate in isolation; the ability for Emergency to run effectively and efficiently also depends on the demands experienced by other areas of the hospital, including operating theatres, intensive care and wards.
“This incident has prompted us to review our processes right across the hospital to ensure no patient experiences a wait like this in future,” he said.
It’s no secret the RCH has been swamped with Emergency presentations since moving to its brand new building in late 2011.
The total number of Emergency department presentations for the year 2012-13 was 6 per cent higher than in 2011-12 and 14 per cent higher than in 2010-11. This growth is significantly higher than the state average.
In fact, Emergency presentations are at their highest level since August 2007, with 7,530 presentations for the month of June this year.
“Over the past few weeks we have had days in which we’ve seen more than 300 presentations. These levels are unprecedented for us,” Dr Oakley said.
“What this means is that, unfortunately, it’s not uncommon for patients needing admission to hospital to wait more than 18 hours to gain access to a hospital bed.”
But Dr Oakley points out that the community can help.
“Families can help us help our sickest patients by making the most of their local resources,” Dr Oakley said.
“Sometimes we see families who drive past four or five hospitals with good emergency departments to come to the RCH, or bring their child to us rather than their GP.”
“It’s about developing trust in GPs and local emergency departments.”
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