Emergency departments are clogged with seriously ill patients and paramedics are responding to record numbers of life-threatening cases as doctors warn the after-effects of people delaying medical care in NSW due to COVID-19 restrictions are pushing the system to crisis point.
“We are getting busier and busier which is partly a hangover from lockdowns and delays in people getting routine medical care after COVID-19 hit,” said Dr Clare Skinner, president-elect of the Australian College of Emergency Medicine. “There was a slight pause during 2020 but now we are back to pre-pandemic levels with older patients, people with mental health conditions and children needing the most care.
Dr Skinner said more staff were needed, along with more acute beds and a “whole of system overhaul” to deal with an ageing population, complexity of cases and sicker patients. The number of arrivals to emergency by ambulance increased by 21 per cent compared to the same quarter in 2016. There were about 88,000 patients on the waiting list for elective surgery at the end of March, a drop from a record of around 100,000 in June 2020.
People waiting for ophthalmology, ear, nose and throat and orthopaedic surgery waited the longest, with the median wait time for ophthalmology surgery at 266 days.More than 5200 patients waited longer than the clinically recommended time frame at the end of the first quarter of this year. This was up from 2037 waiting at the end of March 2020, but down from a high of 10,563 at the end of June 2020.
lucy_carroll
lucy_carroll I thought all was in control with Gladys 😂😂
lucy_carroll Terrifying how unbalanced Australia has become. Covid hasn’t even arrived yet compared to the rest of the world, regardless of vaccinations when the boarders come down (and they have to at some stage) thousands will be affected by Covid and the hospitals have to be ready!
lucy_carroll There’s no money to rectify the health system, it’s all gone to the military over the past 20 years of conservative government in anticipation of provoking war with china
lucy_carroll Guess we really couldn’t have stadiums AND hospitals?
lucy_carroll Globalisation since the first foreign travellers from the shithole of Britain is destroying my land and my people after over 60,000 years of diseases free sustainable living!
lucy_carroll Yeah, but 'gold standard', right? And the PM was NOT just unmasked as a QAnon conspiracy theorist. NOR are NSW politicians using coppers as personal goon squads.
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