Wollongong's entire fleet of ambulances were caught up outside Wollongong Hospital's emergency department yesterday with patients forced to wait outdoors on trolleys for treatment.Eleven ambulances were queued at the hospital about 4.30pm waiting for their patients to be triaged, according to a Mercury source.The queue included every one of the region's eight rostered ambulances, together with three additional on-call crews.
Email us about your experiences at Wollongong Hospital's emergency department, or post a message belowThe source, an ambulance paramedic, said the situation was not a one-off concern."This is the end of the fifth week of a trolley block (when overcrowding lengthens the time it takes to find patients a bed) that has continued day and night," he said.The latest trolley block strengthens calls for expansion at the hospital, which has been unfavourably compared with hospitals of a similar patient load in Sydney.A spokeswoman for South Eastern Sydney Illawarra Health Service confirmed there had been an increase in patients arriving at the emergency department in the past month."Last week there were 983 presentations to the ED, 329 of which were via ambulance," she said."On our busiest day, there were 11 more ambulances than normal along with 20 additional non-ambulance presentations."The spokeswoman said yesterday was "another exceptionally busy day" with 45 ambulance presentations by 4pm, the equivalent of the daily average."During this time, patient acuity has been far greater, which means more patients than usual have required longer periods of medical and nursing intervention in the ED."It is not the first time the alarm has been raised over the trolley block, with health service officials having to respond to similar concerns in April and August 2007, and May 2008.In July 2006, Wollongong Hospital was provided with emergency nurses to assist with the blocks.The health service spokeswoman said yesterday strategies were in place to deal with peak periods of demand. Expecting patients to queue outside in the emergency corridor was not part of the strategy.NSW Health Minister John Della Bosca is under increasing pressure to fund the expansion of the emergency department, where the number of patients rose by 4.3 per cent last year. Doctors, politicians and community members are calling for change, comparing Wollongong with St George and Nepean hospitals, which have similar patient loads but more staff specialists and nurses. Wollongong's emergency department has 28 bed bays, compared to St George's 46 and the Nepean's 40.
