Elective surgeries cancelled under emergency 'code yellow' across SA public hospitals

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Elective surgeries have been cancelled and an internal state of emergency has been called across South Australia's public hospital system as it grapples with what the government says is unprecedented demand.

Transcript

00:00 Simone King has spent months waiting to have her gallbladder removed.

00:07 When she arrived at the Royal Adelaide Hospital for scheduled surgery on Friday, she was sent

00:12 home.

00:13 "I'm very concerned because I'm not the only one.

00:14 There's a lot of people who have got more problems than I have that need to be seen

00:18 to."

00:19 All elective surgeries, except Urgent Category 1 and Category 2 paediatric operations, have

00:24 been delayed by SA Health as it grapples with a system-wide Code Yellow, or internal emergency.

00:31 "I haven't called a Code Yellow before so I think it goes without saying that we thought

00:35 this was a very serious state we were in."

00:37 "What this suggests is that the whole of the system is now in crisis."

00:41 SA Health says respiratory illnesses are helping drive hospital demand.

00:46 At least 270 health workers are off sick with COVID, and more than 140 hospital patients

00:53 have COVID or the flu.

00:55 "We currently have 200 more patients in our hospital than the same time last year.

01:00 And that's a significant uplift for our system."

01:03 "The wait lists are very large and they just seem to keep growing and growing and growing."

01:08 As well as delaying elective surgeries, SA Health has opened all available hospital beds

01:14 and asked private hospitals to treat more public patients.

01:17 "Labour said they'd fix this.

01:19 They said they'd fix the ramping crisis.

01:21 They said they'd fix the hospital system and it has gone to pieces under their watch."

01:26 "There are hundreds of extra beds that are needed across the system and that's why we

01:30 are doing exactly that.

01:32 Would I like all of those beds to be available yesterday?

01:34 Of course I would."

01:35 It's not just metropolitan hospitals affected by elective surgery delays.

01:40 "People here are really isolated and they are already cut off from services.

01:44 So to have somebody in the city say, 'Well you can't have this as well,' just adds to

01:49 the woes of the country people."

01:51 SA Health says patients in need won't be turned away from hospitals, despite the internal

01:56 emergency.

01:57 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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