A shocking photograph showing multiple trolleys lined up in a hospital corridor with patients waiting for beds shows – showing the extent of Australia’s worst-ever flu season.
The photograph shows five paramedics next to ten trolleys at Royal Melbourne Hospital in an image that was released on Monday by 3AW’s Neil Mitchell.
‘People being treated in corridors, ambulances lining up, there is proof in this photograph there is a problem,’ he said on live radio.
The photograph, pictured above, shows at least five paramedics surrounding their patients in a busy hospital corridor
The woman who took the photo, Elizabeth Bolte, said she was in shock after witnessing the chaos.
Her father was in hospital with the flu, having had trouble breathing earlier in the day, and had to wait an hour for his chest x-ray.
Elizabeth was certain her father had a bed by this point but unfortunately hospital staff informed the family that he would have to come back to the waiting room after his check up.
When he eventually had his blood work done, right beside a busy hallway, she snapped the photo in disbelief.
‘I thought we were past putting trolleys in hallways but perhaps we’re not,’ she told 3AW.
She claims there were empty beds in the hospital but they couldn’t be used because a nurse told her they were understaffed.
The horror flu season has swept the nation with more than 137,500 influenza cases nationwide since the start of September (pictured is the Influenza A virus)
Director of emergency medicine at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, Professor George Braitberg, said that the day Elizabeth is speaking of was particularly busy.
‘I think we’ve been under the pump since the flu season started,’ he said.
If someone arrives at a hospital with the flu they need to wait for a specific isolation room and bed before being moved forward in the queue, he explained.
That’s why it can be difficult to find a suitable place for the influx of patients.
The Royal Melbourne Hospital (pictured)
The horror flu season has swept the nation with more than 137,500 influenza cases confirmed since the start of September.
The amount is more than double the 53,159 cases of the same time last year and more than the total amount, 83,092, for the entire season of 2016.
New South Wales has the most reported cases nationwide with 70,000 people affected.
More than 35,000 cases have also been confirmed in Queensland, and at least 13,000 cases have been reported in Victoria, leading to a national shortage in the anti-viral drug, Tamiflu.
Australians aged 80 years old, along with children between the ages of five and nine, have been the worst affected.