Pressure continues to mount on local hospital and ambulance staff with the health system at breaking point.
Last Thursday six ambulances were ramped at Bairnsdale’s hospital’s Emergency Department (ED), some for nearly four hours, meaning there was little to no ambulance coverage for the entirety of the region.
It’s a sight that has become all too common.
Bairnsdale Ambulance Union representative, Stephen Hill, explained the impact of the ramping.
“Ramping at Bairnsdale Hospital has been an issue for some time now and last Thursday night highlighted the issue with all East Gippsland Ambulance resources ramped at Bairnsdale Hospital or tasked with cases from 7.40pm until 10.55pm when a crew could be dispatched to a case,” Mr Hill said.
“Included in the crews at the Hospital was a Lakes Entrance Crew that worked 5 hours over their shift finish time.
“At the moment in our EBA negotiations the main sticking point is still our end of shift management and when we have crews working five hours past the end of their shift with most of that time being ramped at the Hospital its not hard to see why many are looking elsewhere for employment or considering early retirement.
“There is no one fix for Health in East Gippsland, we need more out of Hospital services, more Hospital services including beds and better Ambulance coverage over night including 24 hour MICA coverage.”
“It leaves you feeling really powerless, every ambo wants to come and help people, and when you’re stuck at the hospital, it just feels like it’s pointless,” Advanced Life Support (ALS) paramedic Hugh Brown said.
Paramedics are currently undertaking industrial action to help improve their working conditions, however hospital ramping is likely to continue.
Bairnsdale Regional Health Service chief executive officer, Robyn Hayles, said the affect ramping has on the hospital and its staff is concerning.
“Between five and six ambulances arrived at the Bairnsdale Regional Hospital Emergency Department in the space of about two to 2.5 hours last night (Thursday, July 19),” Ms Hayles said.
“This placed extreme pressure on our Emergency Department, which already had a large volume of patients in its care and in the waiting room.
“This high demand, limited physical space in the ED and some staff absences in our medical workforce caused us to take in patients progressively from ambulances depending on the urgency of the cases at hand.
“The hospital inpatient beds were also at capacity.”
Ambulances began leaving BRHS before 10pm as hospital staff were able to admit patients to the ED.
“Our ED is small, with a capacity of nine assessment cubicles, two assessment rooms and five short stay beds,” Ms Hayles said.
“Over the past three years demand on our ED has been growing year on year as the East Gippsland population grows.
“In the 2023/24 financial year alone, BRHS treated almost 1000 more patients than it did in the previous financial year.”
Ms Hayles said hospital and ambulance staff deserve to be praised for their continued good work.
“I would like to thank the Ambulance Victoria staff and our dedicated ED and medical workforce and congratulate them for their hard work under pressure last night,” she said.
“The local ambulance teams and BRHS staff work together each day, doing their best to ensure community gets access to services as and when they need them within the resources available.
“BRHS cannot comment on any allegation that no ambulances were available in East Gippsland during this period, and defer to Ambulance Victoria on that matter.”
