The head of a regional Victorian health service where a 72-year-old man died following a cardiac arrest he suffered in a bathroom four hours after he was brought to hospital, says he should have been admitted within 40 minutes.
Bairnsdale Regional Health chief executive Robyn Hayles said the man arrived at the emergency department via ambulance around noon on Monday at a time when it was experiencing "significant demand".
He was still waiting to be treated when he was escorted to the bathroom by a paramedic and nurse, suffered a cardiac arrest and died.
"The gentleman experienced a cardiac arrest at approximately 3:30pm [and] resuscitation occurred over the next 40 to 45 minutes; he passed away at about 4:15pm," Ms Hayles said.
She said the man was brought to hospital after a fall at home and had been triaged, assessed and received some initial care.
She said he was in the second-highest category of care required.
"We try to see those people in the emergency department, we try to get them off the ambulance, within 40 minutes and see them within our ED within four hours."
An investigation into the man's death is underway.
Emergency department '100 per cent full'
Ms Hayles said 12 staff were off sick on Monday, six due to COVID.
The absences make up 18 per cent of the clinical staff rostered that day but staff were moved around to ensure the ED was fully staffed and all but two absences across the facility were filled.
But all nine ED cubicles were full at the time, as were the short-stay unit cubicles.
There were also three other ambulances waiting with patients.
"We had five beds that were closed because we were unable to get staff to open those … that was in one of our general wards."
She said it was not the first time ambulances have had to wait to offload patients and demand had increased significantly in the past two years due in part to population growth, which was also making it more difficult to attract staff due to housing availability.
She said some staff were also retiring earlier after a difficult few years and some people who delayed care during COVID-19 were showing up with more complex illnesses.
"The size and capacity of our emergency department is something that is increasingly putting pressure on our ability to meet client care needs in a timely way."
Ms Hayles also revealed another investigation was underway after a woman was not able to visit her husband at the weekend before he died due to restrictions on visitors.
"We do think in that situation that the decision was the wrong decision, so we're just reviewing those protocols and practices at the moment."
'System under stress'
Premier Daniel Andrews today offered his "deepest sympathies" to the man's family and acknowledged the "enormous pressure" hospitals were under.
"On any given day over these last few months, we've had up to 2,000 staff who have not been able to report to work each and every day across our hospital system," he said.
"They're sick or they're having to care for somebody who's sick — that puts extraordinary pressure on our system."
Rural Doctors Association of Victoria president Rob Phair, who works at Bairnsdale Hospital, said it was an issue across the health system.
"We have a health system that's under massive stress," he said.
"From the lack of GPs – everyone will comment how they can't even get in to see their local GPs – through to our hospital emergency departments in towns like Bairnsdale and Sale and Traralgon, right through to the big city hospitals."
Danny Hill from the Victorian Ambulance Union said delays at EDs meant crews that once would have done eight to 10 cases in a shift, were now more likely to do about two cases.
"When they can't get patients into the hospital, they can't leave the hospital, which means that there's patients out there in the community who need an ambulance to attend to them," he said.
"They may have a life-threatening emergency but the crews are not available to respond because they're still caring for their patient in the hospital corridor."
Call for replacement workforce
Bairnsdale is in the electorate of Nationals MP Tim Bull who said the Victorian government needed to urgently address hospital staff shortages caused by the pandemic.
"The frustrating issue of this is we're more than two years into this pandemic and we need to have systems in place to be able to deal with these shortages when they arise," he said.
He said staff at Bairnsdale have been putting in an "absolutely extraordinary" effort but staffing shortages were hard to overcome.
Mr Andrews said people had returned to the health workforce after retiring or changing careers.
"The big issue here is back-up workforces; we're using our third or fourth back-up workforce," he said.
"People have come back from retirement, people are doing full-time instead of part-time, people are helping out in every way they possibly can."
