New data from the Bureau of Health Information has emerged showing record numbers of seriously ill or injured patients swamping New South Wales emergency departments, The Sydney Morning Herald reports.
The data shows that almost half of triage 2 “emergency” patients (for example, people with suspected heart attacks, stroke and car crash victims) faced potentially damaging treatment delays, waiting longer than the 10-minute clinically recommended benchmark (45.4 per cent) for treatment.
More than one in three “urgent” patients (for example, people with major bleeding, severe dehydration or serious fractures) were still waiting for treatment to start more than 30 minutes after arriving at emergency departments.
Dr Clare Skinner, emergency physician and president of the Australasian College of Emergency Medicine, has commented stating, “The pressures on emergency departments just keep building.”
The continued pressure on the health system, and in particular emergency departments, has potentially fatal consequences for patients who are facing increasingly delayed treatment.
The full article can be accessed here: https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/critically-ill-overwhelm-nsw-emergency-departments-in-record-numbers-20230228-p5co35.html
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