Ambulance Ramping Crisis Hits Lyell McEwin Hospital

Ambulance ramping at Lyell McEwin Hospital has reached alarming levels, with up to 16 ambulances ramped at the northern suburbs hospital on the morning after the long weekend. The Ambulance Employees Association has expressed concerns about the record month of ramping, citing immense demand on paramedics and hospital staff.

Ramping Crisis Continues

Ambulance Employees Association general secretary Paul Ekkelboom said he was messaged multiple times throughout the night by members. "Even until 6am this morning, we had 82 pending cases in the public," Mr Ekkelboom said. "We had priority 3's that were waiting anywhere from four hours to, I think 20 hours."

Priority 3 patients are expected to have an ambulance respond within 30 minutes. Mr Ekkelboom also mentioned that there were 10 priority 2 cases — usually including conditions like chest pain, stroke or collapse — pending throughout the night. "You would dispatch one — another one would come in," he said. "Most of the time we didn't reach [them in] the KPIs of 16 minutes."

Mr Ekkelboom described the situation as "an extremely unsafe environment to work in." The general secretary said the pressure on paramedics and staff was becoming an "everyday occurrence". "If we don't have [ambulance] resources available because of ramping, then we're not going to be able to respond in the designated time frames," he said.

Opposition Criticizes Government Response

Opposition health spokesperson Jack Batty said the state's hospital system had seen a "night of extraordinary pressure on our health system". He said every metropolitan Adelaide hospital was operating under the "most extreme capacity category" — code white, meaning they were at or over 125 per cent capacity. "There was not a single emergency bed available last night available anywhere in metropolitan Adelaide," he said. "This is all being brought to you by a government who promised to fix the ramping crisis."

A state government spokesperson said in a statement that code whites were a regular occurrence under the former Liberal government. "Our EDs are dealing with more presentations than ever before — nearly 11,000 more in the year to September compared with the same period last year," the spokesperson said.

Premier Peter Malinauskas cited the aged care crisis as a contributing factor to ramping. "We are now approaching 600 people in our hospital system today that are aged care patients ready to be discharged — that is to say, they should not be in hospital, they've got to get out and they've got no aged care bed to get into," he said. "The federal government is well aware, well aware. While we agree with the feds on a lot of things this is one thing [where] we've got a big point of difference, and they're well aware. Rest assured."

August recorded the most ramping hours on record — at 5,891 hours — while September reached 5,507 hours.