The South Australian government says an investigation is underway after a photo emerged of a patient lying on the waiting room floor of an emergency department.
The photo, posted on social media, shows a person on the hospital floor with a white blanket covering them during a reported five-hour wait.
Premier Peter Malinauskas said the fact someone felt the best place for them was to lie down on the floor was "not satisfactory".
"And it's important that, while we acknowledge failures in the system, we don't confuse that with the extraordinary effort that is being undertaken on a daily, hourly basis from nurses, doctors, orderlies, cleaners in the hospital system who have been working back-to-back-to-back-to-back," he said.
"So, we acknowledge their efforts, but also acknowledge that what happened wasn't acceptable and that's why there's an investigation into that particular case."
On Wednesday, the doctors' union sounded the alarm of what it said was serious safety problems in the overstretched emergency departments at the state's two biggest hospitals.
The hospital overcrowding problem has been brewing for years under successive Labor and Liberal governments.
But SA Liberal leader David Speirs said the government made health "a massive issue" leading up to the March state election and urged them to "get on with what you promised".
"They've now been in office for three months and things have been worse than ever," he said.
Opposition health spokeswoman Ashton Hurn said the government was focused on ending ramping at the expense of issues inside the hospital, and a system-wide review was needed.
But Mr Malinauskas said his government was moving at "warp speed" to try and improve the situation it inherited.
"This time last year in South Australia our hospital system was under the pump with record ramping and there was zero flu and zero COVID and now we've got both all at the same time," he said.
"Now we've put hundreds of extra beds into the system in the space of 10 weeks, which has been working flat-chat we're recruiting more staff than ever before.
"And we're moving at warp speed to try and achieve that in the context of health service delivery, but the system is under massive strain around the nation at the moment and South Australia is no exception unfortunately."
