If it were a life or death situation with a true Covid emergency, they would find capacity.
In life or death emergencies we will always strive to find capacity but that is at the expense of others.
I can assure you as a clinician working at the frontline in NSW emergency we are stretched to breaking point on a daily basis and it would not take much covid or otherwise to tip us into the abyss.
Yes, and it is not just the ER.
My daughter is a in a Respiratory and Infectious Diseases Ward at a major hospital, and when things were at the their grimmest they repurposed wards to form six Covid/ Covid Probable/ Covid Possible Wards at the hospital. One was set up to be the main Covid Ward. And those three categories then complicate and compromise the ability of the other parts of the hospital to function including ER and where the ambulances arrive.
Hospitals are just not normally set up for high numbers of infectious patients to flow through them. So when significant numbers arrive, then patients with other health problems suffer.
Also in repurposing there is a limit to what you can do, as for example there are only so many negative pressure rooms, and not all have airlocks. With time some of the wards can have upgrades. So first question is have the wards in Sydney already been upgraded, as it is not an overnight process. and the temporary Covid Wards are in the main not as good as they really need to be.
Next problem is that with a surge on is that rather than having the one patient in a negative pressure room, you are possibly going to have a shared ward, and that then increases the risk to the hospital staff.
Also the problem already raised Princess Fiona is that those Wards and Rooms are already full. And not are they full, but new sick people present each and every day. There is a limit to where you can move them to, and especially if they actually need those same special facilities In my daughter's ward they are there either because they already have serious respiratory problems, including end of life cases, or have other infectious diseases of many different kinds. ie TB. That then means that a lot of hard decisions are made on who gets treatment and when and so many surgeries were substantially delayed.
Then with the incoming Covid patients they also need to be kept for their full quarantine period, and some are also long haulers tying up a bed and staff for much longer than many cases. So fewer cases tie up beds for longer.
Plus also some people who might normally present, may delay in doing so when there is a Covid surge on. ie People with serious asthma attacks may delay in seeking treatment. This meant that at times when the surge was on in Vic that they were seeing more patients presenting to their ward with more critical problems than normal.
So that leads to compromised health outcomes for people sick with other problems. Moreso when various surgeries and treatments are suspended or slowed down
And if the cases continue and health workers start getting infected then that also can mean that it is not just the physical resources that are the issue, but that having adequate staff coverage itself also can be a huge problem. Now at my daughter's hospital they had very few staff infected. But the hospital where my niece works was at had almost a hundred staff infected. And another major hospital in Melbourne had a cluster that grew to 164 cases with many staff involved. Now this time in Sydney hopefully that staff have all been vaccinated as this may assist in minimising the problems.
And on top of the above you now have a Covid strain that is a lot more transmissible, and so that is very likely to make the task even harder.
Yes it will recover. Hope by Floriade everything is OK again.
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