| Welcome to The Biggest Board. We hope you enjoy your visit. You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free. Join our community! If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features: |
| Patient dies in hospital hallway | |
|---|---|
| Tweet Topic Started: Feb 8 2009, 12:05 PM (63 Views) | |
| Warren | Feb 8 2009, 12:05 PM Post #1 |
|
Administrator
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
Patient dies in hospital hallway By Darrell Giles August 05, 2007 12:00am Article from: The Sunday Mail (Qld) * Woman brought in "short of breath" * Died four hours later still waiting for help * Delay in autopsy reports on SIDS A 43-YEAR-OLD woman has died on a stretcher at Brisbane's Logan Hospital because no beds were available. The Woodridge woman was brought in by paramedics suffering shortness of breath. She waited more than four hours but died before being admitted. Piers Akerman: Howard takes healthy interest in hospitals. Matt Price: Want health aid? Don’t get mad – get marginal Queensland Ambulance sources said the woman's life could have been saved but a shortage of beds at the hospital, in Brisbane's south, meant she had to wait in a hallway for treatment that never came in time. "Logan Hospital is always at capacity - we take patients there and wait and wait, sometimes four, five, six or seven hours," one paramedic told The Sunday Mail yesterday. "This woman was taken in and she died on the stretcher waiting for help. It's wrong." Queensland Health refused to comment. The Queensland Ambulance Service yesterday issued an unprecedented public statement yesterday about the death, saying it had referred the case to the Coroner for investigation. Ambulance Commissioner Jim Higgins said the woman was taken to Logan Hospital on July 18. While waiting at the hospital, she became unresponsive and resuscitation attempts failed. "This is a sad incident and I extend my condolences to the family of the patient," said Mr Higgins. "Such cases are always fully investigated. "The cause of the death is unknown and that's why this matter has been referred to the Coroner. "Until the Coroner makes a determination in this matter it would be inappropriate to comment further. "However, I can say that the patient was under the care of paramedics at all times." Death referred to watchdog Mr Higgins said he had also referred the death to the independent watchdog, the Health Quality and Complaints Commission. The ambulance source said Logan Hospital had been at capacity almost every night for the past fortnight. Gold Coast and Tweed Heads hospitals were on bypass - which meant no beds were available and ambulances were directed to take patients to the already over-stretched Logan Hospital. The woman's death was similar to that of father-of-four Greg Hayes, 47, who died in June after being turned away from Tweed Heads Hospital and paramedics were forced to transport him another 22km to the Gold Coast Hospital. Health and ambulance officials tried to absolve themselves of blame over the death of the heart attack victim, saying a radio fault caused the tragedy. The Queensland Ambulance Service made the first move on this latest tragedy, saying it was not responsible for the woman's death. Paramedics 'not implicated' A spokesman said there was no suggestion that paramedics were in any way implicated in the woman's death. He said questions should be asked of Queensland Health. Opposition health spokesman John-Paul Langbroek said the woman's death "put a very human face on Labor's disgraceful handling of health in Queensland". Paramedics, politicians and medical groups had been expressing their concern for years about bed access at Queensland hospitals. Ambulances were often forced to queue in emergency departments driveways with patients on board because no beds were available. A report by consultant Peter Forster in 2005 said Queensland Health would require an additional 170 beds each year for the next 20 years just to meet future demand. |
![]() |
|
| 1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous) | |
| « Previous Topic · Post Archives · Next Topic » |





![]](http://z3.ifrm.com/static/1/pip_r.png)



5:53 PM Jul 13