The Royal Children’s hospital in Melbourne is back to “normal” levels of demand after a surge on Monday night that led to emergency wait times of up to 12 hours.
Dr Sarah Arachchi, a general paediatrician who works across public and private hospitals in Melbourne, said a lack of bulk-billing doctors, summer viruses including Covid-19, and health anxiety among carers had led to the hospital having to urge people to seek alternative care if their child’s condition was not urgent.
“GPs are overwhelmed, and many no longer bulk bill” she said. “I fully support the GPs who choose not to bulk bill, but that has resulted in a lot of people unable to afford the gap and so they’re bringing their children to the emergency departments.”
In a statement the Royal Children’s hospital said more than half of patients who arrived on Monday afternoon were triaged as less urgent, and wait times for those people may reach more than 12 hours. “We will always treat the most seriously ill children first,” the statement said.
Arachchi said there are lots of viruses going around including adenoviruses, rhinoviruses and enteroviruses, alongside Covid-19.
“Lack of fluid intake and dehydration, a rash, gastroenteritis and fever are the most common reasons people bring children into hospital, and these symptoms are often due to a viral infection that has been going on for a while and not gotten better,” she said.
“As a parent I totally understand their anxiety and concern. But we have noticed an increase in health anxiety among parents, partly because of the reporting on Covid-19, and parents worried that their children aren’t old enough to be vaccinated, who also may be unaware of other services like GP respiratory clinics.”
These clinics are free to everyone regardless of whether they hold a Medicare card, and North Melbourne Paediatric Respiratory Clinic and Monash Paediatric Respiratory Clinic are both open until 11pm. Nurse on Call, the Victorian Virtual Emergency Department, and online telehealth appointments are other alternatives, though calling 000 should always be called if a child is critically unwell.
By 10.30am Tuesday morning, an update to the hospital’s website said the emergency department was back to operating at a normal level. “Even during normal level of activity, our staff are often busy, and waiting times around an hour are common,” the update said.
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, told ABC Radio Melbourne on Tuesday that there is “real pressure” across the health system.
“The fact is that too many people are turning to various emergency departments, not due to any fault of their own, but because there are no alternatives,” he said.
“That’s why we, during the election campaign, committed to urgent care clinics that would provide bulk-billing services for urgent care – things like a kid with a broken arm, or a child who needs assistance and doesn’t really need to be in an emergency department of the local hospital.”
Victoria’s deputy premier, Jacinta Allan, echoed the prime minister’s comments.
“The GP system has been under huge pressure as a consequence of both a pandemic but also an increasing demand year on year on services as our population continues to grow and as we continue to live longer,” Allan told reporters on Tuesday.
Allan said she had previously used Nurse on Call services and that Victorian families could also access the virtual emergency department or local hospitals for help with their sick children.
“I’d encourage families to consider those options as they look for getting the best possible care for their child,” she said.
The Royal Children’s hospital chief executive, Bernadette McDonald, said up to 120 staff are unavailable to work each day due to testing positive to Covid-19 or being a close contacts, exacerbating the pressure. She told the Today show on Tuesday morning that while wait times were more normal, “the workforce issues are not going away any time soon.”
“When we get these surges in activity and also the workforce issues together, it just doesn’t work and it becomes extremely challenging,” she said.
