Code yellow emergency called at Royal Darwin Hospital after pressure from AMA, unions

ABC NEWS (Australia)

NT Health released a statement on Tuesday late afternoon saying both hospitals were experiencing "capacity challenges due to an increase in the number of patients requiring ongoing acute care".

Transcript

00:00After months of pressure, Royal Darwin Hospital has sounded the alarms, with a bed shortage

00:07in the emergency department impacting patients and staff.

00:10I just feel really sorry for those staff there. They're completely overworked. It's just an

00:16absolute joke, mate, that we can't have hospitals with available beds and available staff.

00:23Code Yellow signifies an internal facility emergency, or something that cannot be fixed

00:28with internal resources. Both unions and the health department say more patients are arriving

00:33sicker and staying longer in emergency departments.

00:37There's, as of yesterday morning, about 84 patients within the emergency department.

00:4337 of them were awaiting beds in the hospital.

00:47According to representative groups, staff at Royal Darwin Hospital actually requested the

00:51Code Yellow be called last week, but the request was knocked back by NT Health executives.

00:56Instead, it came into effect yesterday, but not before this fiercely worded letter was

01:01penned to the Department of Health.

01:03All staff are taking double shifts, they are all tired, exhausted, making mistakes, and they

01:08are stating that ED is currently a danger zone. This seems to be becoming entrenched as the

01:13norm. Staff have no faith in the Department of Health executive to do the right thing.

01:18NT Health insists they have not been strong-armed into the decision, saying the conditions for declaring

01:23a Code Yellow were only met yesterday, but the unions beg to differ.

01:27Why they haven't been calling Code Yellows, I don't know. Whether it's a political statement,

01:34I'm not sure, but instead of the Chief Executive Officer making these decisions, I think it should

01:41be at a clinical level and not at an executive level.

01:45The NT government says calling a Code Yellow is an operational decision for NT Health.

01:52So, let's say it should have done an environmental decision for a couple of years.

01:57I'm not sure, but I won't have some три in the past because you won't have any deals with

02:00documents.

02:02The NT in the past is doing a company called SMA.

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