Australia: A DYING newborn had to be resuscitated in a chair!!

A DYING newborn had to be taken from her distressed grandparents' arms and resuscitated on a chair because nowhere else was available in an overcrowded emergency department.

The horror case is just one of dozens of incidents in which patients' lives are being needlessly put at risk because of a lack of resources, emergency doctors claim.

Fed-up doctors have decided to lift the lid on the issues in Melbourne's emergency departments, saying shocking ambulance bypass figures released by the Victorian Government last week barely scratched the surface of the crisis.

Cases highlighted by the Victorian Emergency Physicians Association show a wider risk to public safety because of bed shortages.

Last March, a heartbroken doctor had to ask a grandparent holding an infant to leave so they could treat her on a bedside chair - no other space was available and all resuscitation cubicles at the hospital in Melbourne's southeast had patients on life support.

"Although baby survived, the incredulous looks between the grandparent, the infant's family, myself and staff are unforgettable," the doctor said.

Melbourne's busiest emergency departments turned away ambulances for more than 4300 hours in just six months last year.

But VEPA president Dr Con Georgakas said the situation was even worse, with hospital administrators blocking physician requests to go on bypass when it was in the interests of patient safety.

"If we were able to get those patients who need to stay in hospital overnight up to the hospital wards promptly, then new patients arriving by ambulance would go straight to a bed in the emergency department," he said.

"The real problem here is a lack of capacity in our hospital system."

"VEPA is calling on the State Government to fulfil its promise of more beds before this situation deteriorates further. We need those beds available 24 hours a day, seven days a week."

Health Minister David Davis said "the Government is determined to turn around Labor's 11 years of mismanagement".



~ from Reuters.







....