Thousands leave New England hospitals before treatment due delays: Bureau of Health Information data

The latest report by the Bureau of Health Information, which covers April to June this year shows an increasing number of patients transferred to other hospitals as the system struggled to cope.

Armidale Hospital had a 20 per cent increase in the number of patients 'transferred to another hospital'.

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Meanwhile, other problems that emerged earlier in the COVID-19 pandemic - like ambulances being "ramped" while waiting to transfer patients due to a lack of beds in an emergency department - have barely improved, the statistics show.

Hunter New England Health executive director Susan Heyman told the ACM the service was still being inundated by record numbers of patients.

With COVID-19 spreading faster than ever before in early 2022, the hospital had faced a year-long surge in patients with various respiratory complaints, plus an unusually early flu season - while the service was hit by a third burden with staff with suspected or actual infections being furloughed, she said.

"It's not going to turn around overnight," she said.

"I'm optimistic that I think we have a whole range of strategies in place that will take some time before they show real effect in our community. But I think the fact that we've got a strategy and we're working in partnership across the healthcare sector [means things will improve]."

The new statistics showed that a record number of patients at hospitals in the New England had given up on getting healthcare before receiving treatment.

Tamworth hospital had more than 1221 patients who "left without or before completing treatment" a 9.2 per cent increase compared with the same three-month period a year before.

At Armidale there was a 35 per cent increase in the number who left without treatment, and in Inverell it was a 43 per cent increase.

Secretary of the Armidale community health and hospital branch of the nurses union Warren Isaac, said the statistics reflect understaffing in emergency departments.

The veteran mental health nurse said the problem could be particularly significant for patients in his specialty.

"The main worry for me is the people who leave without being seen," he said.

"They're leaving with all sorts of problems, physical and mental. The main worries in mental health are people who are either psychosis or they're suicidal. They will become more unwell and it might result in their death."

Health Services Union sub-branch secretary Brian Bridges, whose union represents paramedics among other health workers, said the increased transfer rates reflect a health system "in tatters".

"It's quite simple, it's probably common throughout the state that we are losing rural services and we're therefore having to transfer patients across to bigger or major hospitals, such as Tamworth and Armidale," he said.

"Because the services are no longer available in the rural hospitals."

With more patient transport jobs to drive, the workload for local paramedics has "jumped way, way out," he said.

"A lot of these transfers are occurring out of hours, which is putting a strain on the paramedics service in town," he said.

"Because the hospitals can turn around and say 'we don't have the staff to manage this patient' so the patient's got to be transferred."

Ms Heyman said the local health district carefully audits hospital transfers to make sure they are only undertaken where clinically required.

She said transfers may be required if there is "reduced medical support on the ground in the hospital", though the health service has improved telehealth services by adding a network of emergency physicians to provide better assessments at smaller hospitals.

"It might be that a level of care is required that's not available there, so for example surgery around a broken limb; it just makes sense that they're going to be transferred.

"There's a whole range of reasons why people get transferred and we look at that closely all the time. And it's not in anyone's interests [to do needless transfers] because it impacts us and it costs us."

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