Patients at Wollongong hospital were left waiting on stretchers in corridors for up to eight hours on Monday night, according to paramedics, who have again raised the alarm about the dangerous state of the region's emergency health system.
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Paramedic and HSU delegate Tess Oxley said it was now more common for ambulances to be stuck waiting for hours than it was for them to offload on time.
"The hospital is just full - patients can't be discharged until they are well enough to be discharged, but there is more coming in, and it's a sign that the health system is not coping with the population," she said.
"It's having devastating consequences, because it's flowing on to the emergency health needs of the community."
"Last night, the patients that were transported to hospital were stuck on ambulance stretchers for sometimes over eight hours - so laying in an emergency department corridor on a hard stretcher."
She said at one point there were eight ambulances stuck in bays at the hospitals emergency department, with paramedics working hours past their finish times.
Ms Oxley also said one patient, who was suspected to have a broken leg, was left waiting on an ambulance stretcher for more than five hours.
"Patients are extremely uncomfortable and frustrated - and some of them start to say they feel better and can they go home before they have been assessed by a doctor," she said.
"On an ambulance stretcher they might say 'oh my chest pain feels a bit better' even though they haven't been assessed and there are high risks with not being seen by a doctor."
She said patients' main concern was that paramedics were being delayed by looking after them, and this meant ambulances could not get out to see to other people.
"When all these ambulances are delayed for so long it's delaying response times to the community," she said.
"Another example that's been given to me is that there was a lights and sirens stroke call and they were waiting for 2.5 hours.
"A stroke is quite time critical - there's all these community health messages about how responding to a stroke needs to be timely - but they were waiting over 2.5 hours."
This is the third month running, that burnt out Illawarra paramedics have raised the alarm about hospital delays and their workload.
Statewide, paramedics have been calling on the NSW Government to fund 1500 more paramedics and specialist care positions across the state.
Union members have agreed to continuing industrial action, calling for better resourcing and a wage increase beyond the 2.5 per cent annual cap.
Ms Oxley said is was becoming apparent that the whole health system was in need of fixing.
"Last night was a devastating example of how the whole of health is not coping," she said.
"It's not able to be blamed on COVID any more - we are having tight resources because of the effects of COVID. But the demand on the health system isn't due to to COVID, governments have to admit this is a systemic problem."
"There are people who have worked in this area for over 20 years and they have said that right now is the worst they have ever seen it - I don't know what we do, we just keep raising the issue and hope someone listens."
Keira MP Ryan Park said the current situation was dangerous for paramedics and patients.
"The current situation is simply unsustainable on paramedics and hospital staff but also on patients and their families," he said.
"It's quite clear that additional resources and beds need to be added to what is becoming an overstretched emergency department, but we also need to see additional paramedics out in the field so they are not working dangerously long hours and patients can access emergency care when they need it most."
"This will be an issue that I intend on again raising with the NSW Health Minister because tragically the current situation is putting lives at risk.
"Unfortunately reports like this are becoming all too common an occurrence across NSW hospitals."
The Mercury contacted Ambulance NSW and the Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District for comment.
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