A rural GP has outlined the struggle doctors are having transferring regional patients to Adelaide hospitals, in a written submission to the South Australian parliament.
Port Broughton GP Alison Edwards said rural patients often had to wait hours or even days before they were airlifted by the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS).
"There's not enough beds in Adelaide and this causes ramping because we've got people waiting to be transported to the Royal Adelaide or Lyell McEwin Hospital," Dr Edwards said.
"They're stuck waiting for an ambulance to become available, waiting for the RFDS to become available or waiting for both of those to line up at the same time."
"If you break a hip, we can do an X-ray locally, we can give you some local anaesthetic blockers to take some of the pain away, but we don't have the resourses to pin your hip," Dr Edwards said.
"Your outcomes are better the sooner that gets done but we've had people waiting for 48 hours with a fractured hip before they can get transported to Adelaide for definitive care.
"They might then wait another 24 hours because they get into the queue for theatre and on occasion patients end up with second-rate care purely because of system resourcing issues."
Priority over urgency
A spokesperson from SA Health said there was a flow-on effect to patient transfers from regional areas due to bed availability.
"SA Health is focused on a range of measures to ease demand on our emergency departments (EDs) and free up beds in our hospitals."
"This includes optimising the use of alternative care pathways and hospital avoidance services, ensuring referrals to EDs are for high acute patients only, and providing more community care options for patients in hospital who no longer need acute care."
Dr Edwards said rural GPs usually had to make five phone calls before they could find a bed for a patient that needed an urgent transfer.
"We can't book transport until a bed is available and then we're speaking with the ambulance service who coordinate with RFDS, and then that can take up to 12 or 24 hours before a plane becomes available."
A spokesperson from the South Australian Ambulance Service said they and the RFDS would always prioritise life-threatening emergencies which may see a delay in transferring some patients between facilities.
"Where operationally possible every attempt is made to ensure patients experience timely transfers between health facilities but inevitably, in this complex space, lining up aircraft and hospital bed availability can be challenging," they said.
