South Australian health authorities will recruit student nurses and take unprecedented steps to create and free up beds, as the over-capacity system struggles with record COVID-19 numbers among staff and patients.
The state has a record 358 patients in hospital with the virus, more than the total capacity of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, which will have a 20-bed COVID-19 ward for the first time.
Almost all of Adelaide's emergency departments were over capacity on Friday, with a total of 119 patients waiting for an inpatient bed.
In response, the state government has announced that surgical post-operative areas at the Royal Adelaide Hospital will temporarily be converted to hospital wards to accommodate 32 COVID-19 patients.
The major tertiary hospital will open another COVID-specific ward, the third this week.
This change is in addition to moves taken earlier in the week to postpone electives surgeries to free up 40 beds.
The Angaston District Hospital, in the Barossa Valley, will be converted for use by 23 COVID-19 patients.
New COVID-19 modelling released on Tuesday predicted that more than 400 South Australian adults might need hospitalisation for the virus in the next week as new daily cases peak at 7,000.
Commander says numbers will increase
Central Adelaide Local Health Network head Lesley Dwyer will oversee the capacity-building effort as the state's "COVID acute commander".
"We know, through the modelling, that the numbers are going to increase," she said.
"We know that we have got a winter demand and this is really our first winter demand over a couple of years now, so things are tight.
"It's not just about opening new capacity — that's really important — it's about making sure we make those very considered decisions about that step-down capacity. That is absolutely key.
On Friday, SA Health reported seven deaths of people with COVID-19.
Those who died were a woman aged in her 70s and five people aged 90 or older.
Another 4,374 people have tested positive for COVID-19, but the number of active cases has fallen to 28,592.
Move to recruit more health staff
Health Minister Chris Picton said the government would put the call-out to third-year nursing students to help fill the roles of some of the 1,200 health staff currently isolating with COVID-19.
Mr Picton said the government would seek to further boost capacity using agency nurses.
He said there would also be a renewed focus on discharging patients across the health system.
"We know, across the health system, that there are a number of people in hospital who don't need to be in hospital," Mr Picton said.
"But they're waiting for NDIS packages. They're waiting for aged care places.
"We're working hand in glove with the federal government [and] private providers to make sure we can get those people out of hospital."
Earlier on Friday, Acting Opposition Leader John Gardner put the blame for low bed capacity on decisions Labor made when it was in power from 2002 to 2018.
"They've been in government for about 17 of the last 21 years — it's the former government who closed the Repat, who imposed Transforming Health on the community, who built a new hospital in town that wasn't large enough," Mr Gardner said.
