I don’t feel well………….

It was nice to read in Tales Around the Ranch that the nurses she and Sam were visiting  will be all fun and laughter. That’s great and how it should be. Having said that for Denver, I really wish I could say the same for here. The new State Government (Health Minister) , the Nurses Federation and the Ambulance Officers Association  are heading for a knock down fight with the  Nurses and the Ambulance people threatening to go on strike, work bans etc and general Industrial Action and the Minister threatening them with court action and  use powers to stop any Industrial Action. It is not a happy situation. Why has it come to this??  The previous government was a spendthrift government wot does wot Socialist Governments do – Borrow and Spend. The new Royal Adelaide Hospital cost $2.5 Billion and it doesn’t work as well as it was (is) supposed to. The government also forced EPAS  ( Enterprise Patient Administration System) on the new hospital and made absolutely NO provisions for  paper records. The EPAS system keeps crashing and is unworkable. So – it is costing the hospital millions $$ to have patient records brought from varions places (where they have been stored) to the hospital and take them back again –  every single hour of every single day. Ok, you are now saying why can’t they be stored at the new hospital? Well……………. they can’t be. And why not? Well…………there is not a floor in the whole damn hospital that is strong enough to take the weight of the filing cabinets and all the records. Ok does that answer your question? Oh you want to know costs – well current estimate is in the region of $468 million and will probably top over half a billion before it;s through.

EPAS under review | Steven Marshall – Premier of South Australia

But the main problem is that  when the previous government spruked the new hospital, they closed down several other medical facilities,  despity widespread protests. Subsequently we do not have enough beds to meet the needs of the city – and the State when  patients are flown from the country to treatment in Adelaide. What happens currently is that an ambulance is called out, picks up a patient and brings the patient to either the Flinders Medical Centre or the Royal Adelaide and because there is no room, the patient can be left in the ambulance for hours on end. This called “Ramping”and there can be four or five ambulances so ramped.  The hypocrisy  of it all is that the minister maintains that industrial action puts patients lives at risk and he wont have that,  so he will take the nurses to court. However, he has no concern about leaving patients in an ambulance in the hospital ambulance parking bay for hours on end and does not consider that puts patients lives at risk since the engine must remain running to keep the equipment running. I mean don’t you just  love the small of diesel fumes when you are sick. The photograph on the left you don’t see anymore It would be nice if we could say because they solved the problem – well they did,-  really  – they tore down that metal fence and built a wall so it’s hidden from view! Clever eh ?? No, Virginia, this is not a joke..

So what’s happening. Have no idea. A meeting with the nurses and the Minister broke down without any conclusion or agreement being reached, so the Industrial Action is still on the table as is the threat of  court action against the nurses federation. Monday is a new day – the start of a new week.