Mount Gambier Hospital has postponed non-urgent elective surgery as part of measures to manage staff shortages and high bed demands following an alert white announcement last Thursday.
An alert white is called when the demand for hospital beds outweighs its capacity or the capacity of its staff.
Unlike a code white in metropolitan hospitals, which refers to the emergency departments becoming full, the alert white refers to the back-of-house operations.
Elaine Pretorius, executive director of medical services with the Limestone Coast Local Health Network, said the hospital was "full to the brim" with an enormous demand for beds.
"We have different classifications that go from amber right through to white — and white is the most extreme," she said.
"We have identified that if we don't have a circuit breaker, as it were, we wouldn't be able to continue to deliver services safely."
Dr Pretorius said both staff and patients becoming unwell was causing major problems.
"Over the last few weeks people are pretty unwell, we've seen quite a bit of flu, there's a lot of influenza around at the moment, and lots of RSV, along with COVID," she said.
"That has all contributed to creating a perfect storm for us."
A number of circuit breakers have been put in place to help reduce the impact on the hospital including postponing non-urgent elective surgeries.
Surgeries classified as category 2 or 3, such as routine surgeries or joint replacements, have been postponed.
Category 1 surgeries, such as cancer treatment or for people who have been on a waitlist for long enough, will continue as normal.
Emergency surgery will also be uninterrupted.
Dr Pretorius said there were several other steps being taken to manage the alert white.
"We are trying to determine whether people really need to be in hospital, or whether there are alternative ways that we can care for them," she said.
"Our out-of-hospital services have ramped up.
"We can transfer less acute people to Millicent and Naracoorte.
"Having the community support teams for COVID management has also been very useful."
Dr Pretorius said staff had been working overtime to cover for the rising demand leading to impacts on their physical and mental health.
"People have been doing double shifts, people have been going home to have a sleep and come back," she said.
"It's hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel for our staff at the moment."
While hoping the situation would calm down, Dr Pretorious said hospitalisations and severe illness after a COVID peak still lagged and they were expecting a challenging two to four weeks ahead.
More resources needed, says union
South Australian Salaried Medical Officers Association industrial officer Bernadette Mulholland described the situation as "concerning" and said the postponing of non-elective surgeries was "not ideal".
She said the hospital was in desperate need of more resources to accommodate the rising patient demand.
"We hope that we can find staff really quickly to get that elective surgery back up and running," she said.
Ms Mulholland said it was important that regional areas were able to provide care for patients to avoid long travel to the cities.
The Mount Gambier Hospital is the only centre in the region with an alert white, however, the Millicent hospital is also facing staff shortages.
Elective surgery has been cancelled since last Friday, and the hospital plans to reassess the situation on Tuesday morning.
