Canberra health system facing 'perfect storm' due to staff shortages, sicker patients

More patients are being admitted to Canberra hospitals who are sicker and require a longer hospitalisation, which has limited the number of beds.

Staffing shortages have also been exacerbated as COVID has continued to dwindle staff numbers, with more than 150 staff out each day, on average, due to having the virus. A large number of staff have also been on leave.

In an attempt to deal with the demand, hours have been cut at some health services so staff can be redeployed to other parts of the system.

Canberra Health Services acting chief executive Cathie O'Neill said there was increased demand across every part of the system.

"What we're seeing, particularly this week is what we're calling a perfect storm," Ms O'Neill said.

"We have high demand in almost every speciality across our service at the moment and we're also seeing patients being admitted probably sicker than we have done in some time and what that means is that they need to stay in hospital longer to get better.

"That means availability of beds decreases so it's sort of all come together and we've really had to make some tough decisions this week about redirecting resources to where they are most needed.

"The cumulative strain right across the system is causing us some extra stress at the moment."

Ms O'Neill said there were a range of reasons as to why people with more severe illnesses were presenting to health facilities. She said people had held off on receiving treatment because they were reluctant to come forward initially and there were also long waiting times for general practitioners.

"If you need care access that care, that's one of our concerns with some of these people who are presenting very sick and perhaps should have come earlier," she said.

Canberra Health Services has cut hours at the COVID-19 walk-in centre in Garran and the Australian Institute of Sport mass vaccination centre to deal with the demand.

COVID hospitalisations have remained relatively steady over the past fortnight but other respiratory illnesses are spreading and have contributed to increased demand.

Territory health authorities have been undertaking modelling around what the dual-impact of COVID-19 and influenza will have on Canberra's health system.

Flu cases have been at historic lows in the ACT in recent years. The number of reported cases so far this year is already more than last year where only nine were reported. There have already been 15 reported cases of influenza to ACT Health in 2022.

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Staffing shortages have also contributed to the "perfect storm". Ms O'Neill said many health care workers had taken leave over the Easter and Anzac Day long weekends.

She said Canberra Health Services did not recall people from leave as they wanted to give their tired workforce a break.

The casual pool was also smaller in recent weeks due to school holidays.

It has also been difficult to fill shifts, Ms O'Neill said.

"We regularly put out requests for people to do additional shifts, we're finding as time goes on the responses to those call outs are diminishing which is reasonable as people need to have a break," she said.

Nurses have reported being under significant strain across Canberra's health care system and there is a push within some ranks to strike.

Nurses have said that understaffing has been an issue long before COVID. During the Omicron peak in January, almost 3000 nursing shifts needed to be filled and nurses were bombarded with text messages offering overtime and extra shifts.

The presentation rate at emergency departments has been around 220 to 280 people a day, which is fairly normal, Ms O'Neill said, but she said the number of people who needed to subsequently be admitted to hospital was high.

Ms O'Neill urged people to consider whether they needed to attend the emergency department.

She said many services were offered at nurse-led walk-in clinics and people could go their for injuries such as cuts and minor fractures.

"What we would like individuals to think about is if they think they are going to potentially get better over the next day or two but they just want confirmation they don't have something seriously wrong with them then their presentations should go to GPS or to walk-in centres," Ms O'Neill said.

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