Clinical review launched to probe allegations hospital ED staff are being urged to prioritise patients in ambulances

Chris Picton has appointed Bill Griggs and Keith McNeill to lead the review. (ABC News: Lincoln Rothall)

The SA government has launched a clinical review into allegations Adelaide emergency department staff are being forced to prioritise patients in ambulances over those in waiting rooms because of ramping.

Royal Adelaide Hospital doctor and SA Salaried Medical Officers Association president, David Pope, said hospital managers have demanded staff unload ambulances when there are sicker people inside.

“The hospital managers ring the staff in the emergency department essentially demanding that ambulances be unloaded when we’ve got sicker people arriving in the waiting room,” Mr Pope said.

“What we’re seeing is enormous pressure on clinicians to unload ambulances and bring them into very limited spaces in our emergency departments over and above those in the waiting room who are often sicker.

“We’ve people who’ve waited extraordinarily long hours in the waiting room, only to die later on, so that’s deeply concerning that is something that we all strive to avoid when there’s a treatable cause that can prevent death.”

Health Minister Chris Picton said senior clinicians Bill Griggs and Keith McNeill will probe the “concerning” claims made by Mr Pope.

“I have asked for a review to be done of these allegations by two eminent clinical experts to make sure that we can get the full evidence and the full answers in regards to the allegations that have been made,” Mr Picton said.

Mr Picton said SA Health policy states that hospital staff are required to treat patients of the same priority waiting in an ambulances first, so paramedics can be freed.

“If they’re both category four for example, then we should bring in the ambulance patient of those equal cases first because the ambulance has another important job to do which is to go and respond to cases in the community,” he said.

“I’m very concerned to hear allegations being made that there’s somehow interference in that process when there’s a very clear policy that has been made.”

Opposition health spokeswoman Ashton Hurn said the government needed to give South Australians an assurance that the review will be independent and conducted at arm’s-length from government.

“The gravity of these allegations are so extraordinary, this is a scandal that is one of the worst in our state’s history,” she said.

“The allegations that people have died in a desperate attempt to make the government’s ramping numbers look good is absolutely scandalous and one that we need desperate answers for.”

Ramping – in which ambulances park at hospitals waiting for emergency beds to become available – hit a new record in South Australia yesterday.

Figures released show the equivalent of 178 days were lost to ramping in the month of November and that South Australia has experienced an almost five-fold increase in just over six years.