Warrnambool Base Hospital emergency department regularly overflowing

South West Healthcare will get a larger emergency department and new clinical tower as part of a $384 million upgrade. But with the upgrade at least four years away, SWH chief executive Craig Fraser said something had to be done to address the current issues.

"SWH are working with the ED team to devise short-term infrastructure and model changes which should ease some of the current congestion issues and help in our transition into the new redevelopment space," Mr Fraser said.

"In these discussions we have taken on board detailed feedback from the ED team and we are working with them on a range of options."

But he said even these interim measures would take time to implement.

"Some of these changes will require building works that will take some months to achieve."

Mr Fraser said the hospital had rostered on two additional staff "nearly every shift" to keep up with demand so far this year. He said they were mainly nursing staff, as well as cleaners and orderlies, but the hospital "also continued to actively recruit more doctors" to combat ongoing shortages.

"Our staff are doing an amazing job at responding to this demand as we continue to recruit to try and ease the load," Mr Fraser said.

A doctor who could not speak publicly because he is employed at the hospital said there had been a spike in code yellows being called at the hospital since Christmas.

A code yellow is called in an internal emergency, which can be anything from a gas leak to a power outage, but the doctor said at SWH they were mainly being called because the ED was hitting capacity.

He said there were periods where code yellows were called every three days, with ambulances having to ramp with nowhere to put patients.

He said the issue wasn't a lack of staff, but that the ED was too small and there simply weren't enough beds to cope with the incoming patients. He said he had been forced to examine patients in corridors and worried about missing important diagnoses without proper space and lighting.

SWH executive medical services director Dr Kate McConnon confirmed high demand is putting pressure on waiting times and access to beds.

"The demand is driven by many factors and will continue to be impacted by sporting events such as the local football seasons kicking off again and other events across south-west Victoria," she said.

"Whilst the ED teams are planning for additional demand, there is pressure on both medical and nursing staffing levels as a result of the ongoing impact of COVID on both the staff members and their families.

Dr McConnon urged patients to only attend the ED if necessary.

"During COVID it was difficult for many people to access face-to-face care, and as a result we did see more people present to the ED," she said.

"We hope that now that life is going back to some form of normality, patients will again have more options to seek treatment for non-life threatening, non-emergency care, rather than attending the ED as a first resort."

The hospital is experiencing higher presentations to ED than ever before.

In addition the hospital has taken on more patients following the closure of services at nearby Portland District Health, including 31 expectant mothers. Dr McConnon said this wasn't a large driver of traffic.

"This is manageable for our service, thanks to the hard work and dedication of our maternity teams, and I thank them for stepping up and helping out," Dr McConnon said.

SWH refused to disclose how many code yellows have been called at SWH in the last two weeks, how many patients have presented to the emergency department in the last two weeks, how many beds the emergency department has, how many ramping instances have occurred this year so far and the current average wait time in ED before being seen.

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