Children under 13 can now be treated throughout the State's Priority Care Centre network following the launch of a dedicated paediatric pathway from the Women's and Children's Hospital to assess and treat children with less serious clinical needs.
Minister for Health and Wellbeing Stephen Wade said that during the past financial year, more than 36,000 paediatric patients presented to our metropolitan EDs with urgent but non-life threatening conditions which did not require overnight admission to hospital.
"The Marshall Liberal Government is focussed on establishing better services, closer to home, for South Australian families and providing a voluntary care option as an alternative to an Emergency Department, when clinically appropriate, is another way of delivering that," Minister Wade said.
"The success of the priority care centres is among a raft of other initiatives which are complementing the Marshall Liberal Government's landmark billion-dollar health infrastructure program which is expanding the capacity of every major metro hospital to ease pressure on the State's emergency departments."
The Priority Care Centre program initially focussed on diverting patients from EDs at Flinders Medical Centre, Royal Adelaide Hospital, The Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Modbury Hospital, Noarlunga Hospital, and Lyell McEwin Hospital.
"Whilst these hospital EDs were able to consider transferring paediatric patients to PCCs on a case-by-case basis, there was no clear alternative for less-serious patients presenting to WCH," Minister Wade said.
"We know WCH has a high percentage of walk-in presentations and we are pleased to have established an alternative care option for families."
This year, more than 3,300 patients in total have received treatment across the four PCC sites at Hindmarsh, Marion, Para Hills, and Elizabeth.
Wellbeing SA Chief Executive, Lyn Dean, said this month saw a record with the highest number of patients in one week treated across the four metropolitan PCCs since their commencement a year ago.
"We know these alternative treatment centres are treating patients faster, providing high quality care and easing pressure on our emergency departments," Ms Dean said.
"This makes a significant contribution to reducing ramping, as these patients are less urgent and the PCCs avoid unnecessary time in our EDs.
"The expansion in patient criteria follows a record-breaking four weeks where the PCC sites treated 658 patients – more than double the number of patients treated during the height of COVID-19 across four weeks in March and April this year.
"During August, in one week alone, we have treated 174 patients at our sites, and we are confident the numbers will continue to rise in future, especially now we can treat children from WCH."
Head of Women's and Children's Hospital Paediatric Emergency Department, Dr Malcom Higgins said the high number of ED walk-in presentations indicated a significant opportunity to increase the number of paediatric ED patients who can be offered access to a PCC as a safe and more timely alternative option.
"We are focussed on providing the best quality care to our paediatric patients, however we know sometimes they don't need care in a hospital setting," Dr Higgins said.
"The new pathway was developed with WCHN clinical staff who provided guidance on paediatric patients and their care options.
"Staff information and training commenced this month to support our hospital ED to implement the rollout.
"We will never turn away a patient, but if deemed clinically appropriate, parents will have the choice to have their child treated at a PCC."
Only patients presenting to WCH with less serious or urgent conditions - category four and five – will be considered suitable for treatment at a PCC. Parents will be given the choice for the alternative treatment option in consultation with the triage clinician.
