Hospital staff are burnt out and angry, according to the state's doctors' union, which is warning the system is unprepared for a winter surge.
The SA Salaried Medical Association's senior industrial officer, Bernadette Mulholland, said things are so bad at the Flinders Medical Centre that she visited the hospital for urgent safety inspections on Monday and Tuesday nights.
"There was standing room only in the emergency department area, in the admissions service, and that the actual hospital's beds were full to capacity," she said.
"Winter is going to be harder. We've got flu, we've got respiratory issues, we've got COVID and we've got less staff. We've got vacancies and we've got furloughed staff."
SA Health chief executive Robyn Lawrence said the department was working on its demand program, but it was no longer just focused on winter, because the system is dealing with continuous COVID-19 waves.
"The COVID surges we are continuing to get, we get a six-week lull and then we go back up again," she said.
"Whilst they do seem to be lessening in demand, we really have to be ready for a surge in demand right across the year now."
Southern Adelaide Local Health Network chief executive Kerrie Freeman said the network will open another 26 beds at the Flinders Medical Centre on Monday.
She said it had already added beds to the system by refurbishing 12 rooms, converting them from one-bed to two-bed spaces.
"They're not going to be beautiful like our new hospital is going to be, but they are safe spaces for clinical treatment and I make no apology for bringing on additional beds," she said.
Patients transferred from ambulances to waiting rooms
As ramping remains high, SA Health is also developing a so called "fit to sit" protocol for some patients who arrive at hospital in an ambulance.
"They are deemed under a clinical protocol as what we might colloquially call 'fit to sit'," Dr Lawrence told a parliamentary committee last week.
"They can wait in the waiting room. Just because you've called an ambulance, doesn't mean you're the sickest person to arrive."
Opposition Leader David Speirs said he believed the "fit to sit" strategy was an artificial way to push down ramping statistics, because once a patient is in the waiting room, they're no longer considered ramped.
"This 'fit to sit' strategy is a sham and a disgrace," Mr Speirs said.
"It is Peter Malinauskas and Chris Picton's strategy to try [to] drive down ramping."
However, Health Minister Chris Picton said it was just a formalisation of a system that already existed.
"This happened under the Liberal government here. It's happened in Liberal and Labor states across the country," he said.
'"What is the Liberal Party really suggesting — that we shouldn't have in place this policy that operates elsewhere and that people should be stuck in an ambulance longer than they need to?"
