HOSPITALS — CODE
YELLOW DECLARATIONS
314. Dr D.J. HONEY to the Minister for Health:
I refer to June this year, when it
was revealed that there were no inpatient beds available across five of the
state's busiest hospital emergency departments combined. Why is the
government refusing to provide the number and duration of code yellows across
each hospital in real time?
Mr R.H.
COOK replied:
The
answer to that question is very simple. Code yellows are an internal mechanism
that doctors and nurses use to manage the number of beds available for
patients. As we have made patently clear to everyone, we are witnessing a significant
increase in the number of patients wanting to get care from our world-class
public hospital system. That is because we are coming off the back of a global
pandemic that has led to more acute episodes of disease and other illness and a
situation in which hospitals are under significant pressure.