Hospitals Full

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 482, 11 October 1928, Page 13

Hospitals Full

Sydney's Plight BEDS BADLY NEEDED A momentary glance at the accommodation statistics of Sydney's public | hospitals is strikingly convincing of the utter hopelessness of the position. At the Royal South Sydney Hospital it was reported the overwhelming demand was creating a desperate situation, and that soon serious casualty cases might have to be turned away. The following table, compiled from figures supplied by Sydney’s four leading public hospitals, at once reveals that the limit of their capacity has been reached, and that in two instances there is an overflow, the unlucky odd patients being provided with couches, which are not as comfortable as beds, or special floor accommodation. Hospital Beds. Patients. Prince Alfred .. 530 5. s St Vincent’s 220 2’.:, Sydney 2SO 3SO South Sydney . . 100 100 If Catastrophe Occurred The hospital authorities prefer not (o meditate on the chaos that would occur in the event of a catastrophe in the city. At the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital such a happening is dreaded every moment of t’ a day. There are not sufficient beds as it is. and there are 400 patients waiting to be admitted. Should there be a serious accident, the hospital would have to depend solely on improvised facilities. Agitation is caused when the question is asked at St. Vincent's Hospital as to what arrangements could be made urgently should numerous ca.js be taken there from some catastrophe in or near the city. “We do not know what we could do,” was the frank confession at the hospital recently. “We could do nothing at all, in fact, except to make room anywhere on floors or couches." The Royal South Sydney Hospital is endeavouring to keep two emergency beds vacant in each ward in expectation of some disaster, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to do so. Twelve hundred outpatients are attended to here each week. It is quite candidly admitted at Syd ney Hospital that if a disaster occurred in the city the victims would have to be placed on emergency couches or on the floor. That, or patients who were not so seriously ill or were convalescing, would have to surrender their beds and be satisfied with couches on the floor. As soon as a bed is vacated it is at once occupied again, and there are patients awaiting admission whose turn will not come until some indefinite time in November.