The wife of a patient at the Lyell McEwin Hospital said she and her husband were made to feel "like nobodies” after waiting more than 15 hours in the emergency department. The hospital insists the delay didn't have a detrimental clinical impact on the patient but apologised for the incident.
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00:00After her husband Alan showed symptoms of a stroke, Bridget Haig took him to the Lyle
00:08McEwen Hospital.
00:09An already stressful trip to the ED, made worse by a 15 hour wait.
00:14I was just so stressed and so upset, I just didn't know which way to turn.
00:20An experience the hospital agrees wasn't good enough.
00:24Long waits in our waiting room is not what we want for any of our consumers.
00:28We clearly could have done much better in this case.
00:30After the delay, Alan ended up at the Royal Adelaide Hospital with a suspected brain tumour.
00:35One week on, he's still there, undergoing further testing.
00:39The Lyle McEwen Hospital apologised for the delay in treatment.
00:43The state's opposition says South Australians are fed up.
00:46People are sick of waiting.
00:47They're sick of waiting on the ramps, they're sick of waiting in our emergency departments
00:52and they're sick of this government failing to deliver on their number one election commitment.
00:56Data from the Australian Medical Association suggests the situation Alan and Bridget faced
01:01isn't unique, showing only 38% of urgent SA patients were seen within 30 minutes in
01:07last financial year.
01:09That figure is a long way from the national average of 60% and shows a 27% drop on the
01:15same figure from a decade ago.
01:17That's why we are investing in our healthcare system, to make sure that there is more capacity
01:22for increasing numbers of patients who are coming to receive treatment in our emergency
01:27departments.
01:28An investment which can't come soon enough in a system under pressure.