Wollongong Hospital was so full of patients over the weekend that paramedics were left with no choice but to hold up a sheet over a patient in the emergency department's corridor to provide them with privacy.
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Local Health Services Union delegates shared a photograph of the rudimentary solution, which they say is becoming more and more common as the hospital continues to battle bed block.
"A patient required some personal care and the only way that they could do it and provide that patient with some dignity and privacy and respect was for paramedics to hold up a sheet to block an open area," HSU delegate Tess Oxley said.
"You might expect to see that if paramedics are treating someone on the side of a road, but you don't expect that somebody has to have a sheet up like that to receive health care in a hospital."
You might expect to see that if paramedics are treating someone on the side of a road, but you don't expect that somebody has to have a sheet up like that to receive health care in a hospital.
- HSU delegate Tess Oxley
She said bed block - where the hospital is too full to accept new patients so the ED remains full and ambulances are left waiting for long periods to transfer their patients - was reaching new levels this winter, which meant being left for long periods in corridors was becoming the norm.
"It is definitely now affecting patient care," Ms Oxley said.
HSU delegate and Dapto paramedic Jasmine Starr was on shift over the weekend, which she described as "one of the worst I have worked for a while".
"It was exhausting and draining just standing round the hospital for hours on end," she said.
"At one point, we were somewhere between 12-15 cars deep in the hallway and three of the cars who had been there for between three and four hours, they were told to pack their patients back in the car and drive them to Shellharbour.
"We get it, patients need to be seen, and Shellharbour was appropriate, but it's just so frustrating after waiting for so many hours."
"We are doing this job to help people and standing in a hallway is not helping people. We are getting to help one or two people a shift and then there's all these other members of the community waiting for an ambulance."
She said the long delays also created difficult working conditions, and worse outcomes for patients.
"A lot of that time we are standing, there is nowhere for us to go and sit - we find nooks and crannies where we can - and we swap with each other to take break, but we're standing there leaning against the wall for three to four hours.
We are doing this job to help people and standing in a hallway is not helping people. We are getting to help one or two people a shift and then there's all these other members of the community waiting for an ambulance.
- HSU delegate Jasmine Starr
"We are monitoring our patients for extended period of time and they are deteriorating and we don't have the resources to fix them even though we are inside a hospital. They might be sitting on a wheelchair or on a stretcher which has spinal-rated mattress that is not soft, so they are extremely uncomfortable."
Ms Starr said she wanted people to know that all health staff were doing their best to treat patients and work together, but that the system needed to change.
"The hospital staff themselves, the nurses in particular, are working their backsides off - and it's not on them that there is this issue," she said.
"It's bigger than the people in the ground."
Winter illnesses and seriously ill patients increase demand for ED: health boss
The health district's chief executive Margot Mains acknowledged ambulances had been waiting longer than usual with their patients.
She said the ED experienced higher than usual demand over the weekend, including a significant number of seriously unwell patient presentations across both Saturday and Sunday.
"Most of these patients required complex care and admission with the winter season exacerbating chronic health conditions, which continues to have a major impact on services," she said.
"Our staff continue to work closely with NSW Ambulance during these busy periods to ensure patient care is transferred to the emergency department staff as soon as possible."
Wollongong Hospital's challenges with bed block have been well documented in recent years, with health district management pointing to the limited number of beds, as well as a high number of elderly patients who are waiting for aged care bed as reasons why bed block persists.
The drop in the number of GPs who bulk bill is also sending more people to the emergency department, as people cant afford or find an available doctor.
Earlier this month, ISLHD Executive Director Clinical Operations Margaret Martin said Wollongong did not have the same bed capacity as some of the other hospitals it was compared to.
"If you look at some of the bigger hospitals in Sydney, they have 400 to 500 beds, whereas for most of the patients coming in through the emergency department we've got around 300 ED accessible beds," she said.
"The other thing that we've really experienced in the district, more so than anywhere else in the state, is the number of patients in our acute beds who are waiting for a nursing home.
"Right now, we've got around 112 people in that situation."
Paramedics fight for better pay and recognition
For years, paramedics have been campaigning for better professional recognition and pay, which Ms Oxley said would allow them to play a greater role in the treatment of some patients at home.
"To leave somebody at home is an enormous risk, both for the patient and then for us professionally, but if we are treated as professionals, we can be trained better, we can make those decisions in a safer way in conjunction with the health system and we can leave more patients at home receiving appropriate health care," she said.
"It would mean we could refer them for somebody to come out and do blood tests and for antibiotics to start, and that wold mean over the weekend when GPs aren't available, we could get the ball rolling, and that might mean they wouldn't have to go into the hospital system."
Meantime, the other paramedics union the Australian Paramedics Association NSW is undertaking industrial action this week, to send a message that its members do not believe the Labor government's pay offer is adequate.
Until Friday, APA (NSW) paramedics will refuse to enter patient billing information, refuse to report KPIs, and refuse to attend special events which would place their home station below minimum staffing levels.
Union president Chris Kastelan said the government's offer of a 4 per cent pay rise was disappointing and did not represent an increase in pay in real terms.
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Kate McIlwain
For more than a decade, I've helped the Illawarra Mercury set the news agenda across the region. Currently I'm the paper's health reporter - covering the stories of Illawarra workers and residents in the wake of a global pandemic and at a time where our health systems are stretched to the limit.
For more than a decade, I've helped the Illawarra Mercury set the news agenda across the region. Currently I'm the paper's health reporter - covering the stories of Illawarra workers and residents in the wake of a global pandemic and at a time where our health systems are stretched to the limit.
