WA ramping crisis: South West baby caught in ambulance nightmare after wait for treatment at Bunbury Hospital

WA’s ambulance ramping crisis has reached the regions after a baby was made to wait for care at Bunbury Regional Hospital despite being transported under priority one conditions. The incident – which occurred late Thursday afternoon – is understood to have left some staff who witnessed it deeply upset. St John WA confirmed it responded to a priority one call for a baby aged under one at 4.22pm on Thursday, arriving within 14 minutes before taking the infant to Bunbury Regional Hospital. The hospital’s acting director Sean Conlan said the baby was “triaged immediately” but neither he nor St John would reveal how long the child spent in the care of paramedics while waiting for treatment. “The patient’s medical assessment also commenced within the recommended timeframe for their Australasian Triage Score,” Dr Conlan said. “Overall, the patient was seen, assessed, cared for and discharged in under two hours.” Australian Medical Association (WA) president Mark Duncan-Smith said he had been alerted to the incident by a staff member who reported the child was ramped “for at least an hour” – a timeframe disputed by WA Country Health Service, although the agency would not provide the actual figure. “This (staff member) was desperately disturbed by a baby being ramped and has been having problems sleeping since,” Dr Duncan-Smith said. “I would consider it a reasonable rule that no child less than two-years-old should spend any time ramped at all.” Dr Duncan-Smith said he understood there were “inadequate nursing staff for the amount of work that had to be done” at the time the baby arrived at the South West hospital. “What the staff rostered on are saying is there simply aren’t enough of them, they feel stressed and under resourced and it’s not even school holidays – it could get worse in coming weeks.” Mr Conlan denied staffing levels were an issue at the time the baby arrived. “I’d like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the entire emergency department team at Bunbury Regional Hospital,” he said. “It’s a busy ED and they continue to perform extraordinary work in what are often difficult circumstances. “Like many other hospitals around the State, we do face some workforce pressures, however the ED was adequately staffed when this patient presented.” Ambulance ramping data reported by St John reveals paramedics spent more than 118 hours waiting to offload patients at Bunbury Regional Hospital in June – the worst month on record. That included more than 39 hours in the week to Thursday alone – nearly triple the weekly average over the past year. In September, WorkSafe issued Bunbury Regional Hospital with an improvement notice following a five-month investigation into claims of a “toxic culture” that uncovered a range of risk factors, including an increase in work pressure as a result of personnel shortages. In a scathing summary the WorkSafe official wrote: “I have formed the opinion that the employer has been made aware of the hazard of work-related stress ... and this hazard has not been sufficiently controlled to reduce the risk of harm to health to Bunbury Hospital employees from being exposed and there are circumstances which make it likely the contravention will continue.” The West previously revealed there were 15 workers compensation claims at the hospital in the two years to April 2021 with staff reporting injuries from physical assault, work-related stress or workplace bullying.