The Women's and Children's Hospital in North Adelaide has lost a major teaching accreditation, after an inspection found staff were overworked, and the facilities don't meet current standards.
The College of Intensive Care Medicine inspected the hospital in October, as part of its training reaccreditation program in the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit PICU.
In a letter to the hospital, the college said it found significant concerns, despite being, "supported by a motivated but exhausted group of medical and nursing staff".
The college said the physical environment was inadequate, including bed spaces so small "many cannot accommodate the required ICU equipment, or safely accommodate a parent".
It found staffing levels breached the college's minimum standards, and "the registrar job is so busy there is often no time to write medical notes, let alone time for reflection and learning".
It said while current trainees, and those offered postings for next year could continue at the hospital, it would need to make changes to both the physical environment and staffing levels if it wanted to be re-accredited to take on trainees in 2024.
The state government said it would seek to urgently address the issues, the college raised.
The decision followed an inspection by the college that identified two main issues at the unit — inadequate medical staffing and space.
Women's and Children's Hospital CEO Lindsey Gough said PICU staff were under pressure, which meant there was not enough time for them to teach others or undertake their own learning.
"It's not so much staff shortages, the issue that the college has raised is that the junior doctors are providing the patient care, so they haven’t spent as much time on their training," Ms Gough said.
"We have to provide more resources, so they can have time to train and not be pulled off training to care for patients.
"It hasn't impacted patient care."
SA Health Minister Chris Picton said he has asked the hospital to come up with a plan within a fortnight on how to address the issues and said additional doctors would likely be needed.
The plan will then be presented for his consideration.
"It is concerning and ... there's no alternative but to address these issues, make sure we've got a plan in place, get these doctors on board and get that training back in place for the hospital for 2024 and beyond," he said.
Mr Picton said a loss of accreditation would mean doctors who want to become a specialist paediatric intensive care doctor in future would have to be trained elsewhere.
"We can't have that situation," he said.
Obstetrician and gynaecologist John Svigos said he was pleased the government had "moved exactly straight away" to address the issue, but said it had been a "decade-long problem that the executive have been sitting on for this period of time".
"The PICU staff have been drawing their attention to this all the time and eventually the College of Intensive Care has gotten sick of it and said, 'look nothing's changing here, we’ve got to do something extreme', and that’s putting the threat of withdrawing accreditation," Dr Svigos said.
Mr Picton and Mr Svigos reassured the public that patients would still receive the same level of care.
"They will get that care, this is accreditation, it's a bit different," Mr Svigos said.
"Over passage of time, if it's not corrected, eventually it might impact on the service.
"But service will continue, the patients will be safe."
New hospital in the works
A new $3.2 billion Women's and Children's Hospital will be built on the site of the Thebarton Police Barracks, but is not expected to be complete until 2030-31.
Opposition health spokesperson Ashton Hurn said losing the accreditation had "massive flow-on effects".
"This is a hospital that has to get us through this decade, so the losing of this accreditation raises serious concerns about the government's ability not only to sustain the bricks and mortar of the current Women and Children's Hospital, but also a pipeline of skills in the long-term," she said.
