Reports that Lismore Hospital was in bedlock with flu patients being left on stretchers in emergency due to lack of beds has been denied by Northern NSW Local Health District (NNSWLHD).
Lynne Weir, director clinical operations for the NNSWLHD said Lismore Base Hospital Emergency Department had available bed capacity yesterday morning.
‘The emergency department staff work hard to triage and treat patients within clinical timeframes.
‘In the latest BHI quarterly results for the period January to March 2019, Lismore Base Hospital saw a 4.5 per cent increase in the number of presentations compared with the same period in 2018, up to 9,398 people,’ she said.
‘Despite this, the percentage of patients whose care was transferred from ambulance to ED staff within 30 minutes improved by three percentage points to 85.1 per cent.
‘The 2018–19 budget for NNSWLHD is over $833 million, this is an increase of nearly $47 million on the 2017–18 budget. This is the highest increase in annualised expense budget out of all rural NSW health districts.
‘Patients requiring urgent medical attention should not hesitate to present to their nearest emergency department.’
It would help if affected staff stayed home when unwell, rather than spreading their infections to other staff and patients.
Despite all the rhetoric, this does NOT happen.