THE PROBLEM OF “HOSPITAL BACKLOG” IS GETTING WORSE in Australia.  Firegeezer has been documenting some of these instances during the past month where ambulances are being kept waiting at ER loading docks because the hospitals are unable to admit the patients.  In some cases the waits have been two hours or more.

The “backlog effect” has been growing in UK and Canada as well, but the worse problems have been in Australia.  Today the Daily Telegraph is reporting that in just one area of New South Wales, a region known as Central Coast, paramedics spent more than 1,000 hours every month waiting at hospitals to have their patients taken in.  The seven Central Coast ambulance stations have this year lost the equivalent of 170 days queuing outside Gosford and Wyong Hospitals’ emergency departments.

One source said up to 80 per cent of the area’s 18 ambulance day crews were regularly off the road and unable to answer (emergency) calls because they were trapped at hospital emergency departments.

Read the Daily Telegraph STORY.

Trackback This Post | Subscribe to the comments through RSS Feed