South Australia’s health system is under fire after a great-grandmother went through a horror ordeal, being stuck on the hospital ramp at two different hospitals and forced to wait more than 24 hours for a bed.
Pat, who’s 91 years old and weighs just 39 kilograms, had a fall at home on Monday afternoon, and the situation rapidly deteriorated.
“I had to make three more phone calls to escalate it because she started bleeding from the nose and then she was in pain, lower back pain,” daughter Libby Turner said.
An ambulance arrived about 90 minutes later, transporting Pat to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH), where she remained in the back of an ambulance on a hospital ramp for hours.
“I sat with her in the ambulance ramped at the QEH until 10pm,” Turner said.
“They were having to take her out of the ambulance and into that freezing cold storm to get her more comfortable,” said Libby Turner.
At 6am on Tuesday, she was moved to the Royal Adelaide Hospital, where she was ramped again.
It wasn’t until that 9am she was finally taken in and assessed, but Libby says she waited more than 24 hours in emergency for a bed.
“I’ve just seen her now and she’s not good,” Turner said.
The Turner family say they’re speaking out about the state’s health system because they felt like they had no other option, and don’t want anyone else to have to go through what they did
“Well it’s not fixed, it’s f——,” Turner said.
“Sorry, but no other word for it.”
The opposition says the incident shows the health system needs to change.
“It’s shocking, it’s shameful,” opposition health spokeswoman Ashton Hurn said.
“I’m really sorry in terms of what happened and the government is doing everything we possibly can to improve the situation for other patients,” Health Minister Chris Picton said.
This article was produced with the assistance of 9ExPress.
