EMERGENCY patients waited for up to three hours in the corridors of Royal North Shore Hospital yesterday, delays the hospital blamed on the cold weather and the large number of elderly people waiting for aged care.
A worker called the Herald saying that ambulances were banked up at the doors of emergency and waiting for up to six hours for their patients to be seen or given a bed.

The Herald visited just after 11am, when there were nine ambulances parked outside emergency.

The hospital aims to deal with up to six ambulance patients an hour, and the maximum reached was seven, said Phillipa Blakey, director of clinical operations for Northern Sydney Central Coast Health.

Ms Blakey said an unusually large number of patients had been arriving at the hospital.

"The coldest winter in 21 years has resulted in particularly virulent winter illnesses, including gastroenteritis, in the community. This is having a serious effect on patients with chronic illness," she said.

There was also a lot of sickness among staff. Twenty-two patients were waiting for a place at nursing homes or rehabilitation services, she said.

A spokesman for the NSW Minister for Health, Reba Meagher, blamed the Federal Government for failing to act on the aged care crisis.

He said the issue was on the agenda for a conference of health ministers in Sydney today.

"It is not appropriate for these older people to be in hospital when they should be in aged care," he said.

A spokeswoman for North Sydney Area Health Service confirmed there had been a shortage of beds because of an excessively busy weekend, particularly with elderly patients suffering respiratory illnesses brought on by colds and flus.
"The longest-waiting patient on an ambulance trolley was three hours … there may have been a patient overnight who was there somewhat longer," she said.
"There were a number waiting for two and three hours [yesterday]. There were about five or six ambulances there, and a number of their patients had been waiting for that length of time."