Most Australians are waiting more than 12 hours to be admitted to hospital after presenting to an emergency department, according to new data. Doctors say the backlog is often caused by the inability to discharge vulnerable patients.
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00:00Wayne Jones is recovering from brain surgery.
00:06Basically the scars healed nicely.
00:09But Wayne's time in the emergency department at Perth's Sir Charles Gardner Hospital was anything but nice.
00:16It was standing room only.
00:18It all took about four hours waiting there.
00:22No seats, I was just propped up on my crutches, standing there with my daughter.
00:29A brain tumour meant he had almost no movement on one side of his body.
00:34At the end I was pretty exhausted and I was glad to get on the examination bed and have a bit of a rest for a while.
00:42But the time Wayne waited is actually below the average.
00:46New data from the Australasian College of Emergency Medicine reveals 90% of us are waiting between 12 and 16 hours in emergency before being admitted.
00:57The wait is longest for those with mental health presentations.
01:01Some mental health patients are waiting five or six days in the emergency department.
01:06College President and Director of Emergency at Alice Springs Hospital, Stephen Gawley, says patient safety is at risk.
01:14The longer people are waiting for a bed and waiting for the definitive care in the hospital itself, the higher the rates of morbidity and even mortality goes up.
01:23He says hospitals are jammed because beds are filled by older Australians who can't get a place in aged care.
01:29They often stay in hospital for quite a prolonged period of time.
01:32When I say a long period of time, that could be months or in some cases up to a year or more.
01:37To address this issue, the government will soon launch a $57 million program to help dementia patients transition from hospital to an appropriate aged care facility.
01:48The scheme will start in Adelaide and Hobart before being rolled out across the country.
01:53Doctors say the biggest challenge is finding the healthcare workers to run such schemes.
01:58Something needs to change and it probably should have changed ten years ago.
02:02It will take a lot to restore Wayne Jones' confidence in the hospital system.