Great-Grandmother Forced To Wait Hours Outside Adelaide Emergency Department

An urgent investigation is underway following a “substantial stuff-up” where an elderly woman was left waiting outside an Adelaide hospital in the cold for hours.

Maureen Wortley's distraught family took to Facebook after the 92-year-old great-grandmother had to wait hours outside the emergency department at the Lyell McEwin Hospital after a fall on Mother’s Day.

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Divisional director of critical care in the Northern Adelaide Local Health Network, Dr Penny Conor, yesterday afternoon apologised “unreservedly” to Ms Wortley and her family.

Dr Conor said the hospital had set up an “external Covid screening tent” in a bid to reduce potential spread within the emergency department, however “there was a bit of miscommunication between a couple of emergency staff in the triage space and the staff who do the RAT tests”.

“I probably wouldn’t describe it as a substantial stuff-up, but yes we could have done better,” she said.

Moving forward, the triage and rapid antigen testing processes will be moved inside, with all patients and their families provided N95 masks.

“And in addition to that we are going to put (on) another nursing resource to try and support this service and we’re going to make the amenities outside better by having improved seating and heating,” Dr Conor said.

Premier Peter Malinauskas has ordered an urgent investigation.

"We saw someone not getting the sort of care that any Australian with a degree of compassion would want to see or certainly expect," Mr Malinauskas said.

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