A regional disability pensioner spent hours in agony waiting in a Royal Flying Doctors Service (RFDS) facility with a broken hip and no pain relief, and then hours ramped outside Flinders Medical Centre before he was admitted for a major operation.
Patrick Rainford, 60, had a fall on Tuesday, August 25, and was admitted to Mount Gambier Hospital.
About 12:30am on August 27 he was flown to Adelaide for a total hip replacement, landing about 2am where he waited at the RFDS base at Adelaide Airport.
"I was then left on the stretcher until roughly 9:30am and then finally taken to Flinders [Medical Centre] via an ambulance, and then we got to Flinders and then I'm ramped from then, roughly about 10:15am, until 5 pm in the ambulance," he told 891 ABC Adelaide.
Mr Rainford said he has to fast and was told he could not be given pain relief because he had not been admitted to hospital, and there were concerns about potential interactions with other medications he was taking for other health conditions.
"If you're not admitted then you're sort of like in limbo, and you're not seen until you're admitted," Mr Rainford said.
"Even though the nurses in the ambulance were watching my blood pressure rise and stress levels rise, obviously from the pain, anxiety and high-acid building up in my body from still fasting for the two previous days.
Mr Rainford described the experience of laying on a stretcher as "very uncomfortable" due to a pre-existing injury which includes five bulging discs in his lower back.
"I'd just hate to see anyone else have to go through this ordeal really, especially at my age too, 60, it's not as if I'm young," he said.
The latest ramping figures, released last week, revealed patients were stuck outside public hospitals for a record 5,891 hours in August, surpassing the previous high of 5,866 hours in July 2025.
Also last week, a South Australian Health Performance Council review found ramping was "chronic" between 2022 and 2026 — a period which overlapped with the first term of the Malinauskas government, and which promised to "fix the ramping crisis".
The review found that while it was "unreasonable to think that ambulance ramping is something that can ever be 'fixed'" it would be "at least 'under control' if it reduced to a pre-COVID level of under 2,000 total monthly hours".
SA Health chief executive Dr Robyn Lawrence apologised to Mr Rainford and said the department would reach out to him to learn from his experience, including improving communication so regional patients were "well aware of what the process might be".
"I wouldn't want anyone else to be in Patrick's position, where they feel that they didn't get adequate information or they got incorrect information," she said.
She said the RFDS facility was "purpose-built" for patient transfers.
"We recognise that there was some delays in the transfer of that, but that was done in a safe and controlled way, always with clinical care being provided to Patrick by both nursing staff and our paramedics," she said.
Dr Lawrence explained the state's hospitals endured a "very, very busy month" in August, noting there were "significant issue with patients also awaiting aged care, 476 patients in our hospitals are awaiting aged care".
"All of our patients are prioritised according to their clinical need so, those who need acute and urgent resuscitation obviously move straight through into our system as quickly as possible," she said.
"Patrick was able to safely wait and therefore he's progressed through the pathway as quickly as we could given his acuity and the care he needed to receive."
In a statement, Health Minister Blair Boyer also apologised to Mr Rainford.
"I would like to extend an apology to the patient for the delay in his treatment, due to an extremely busy night at our public hospitals," Mr Boyer said.
"I've been assured the department is reaching out to him today to express our regret at his experience.
"Patients are treated in order of priority and on the night of August 27th there were around 100 patients in the Emergency Department at the Flinders Medical Centre for most of the day."
He said he had been told the patient had only been ramped for 3.5 hours at Flinders Medical Centre.
Mr Rainford disputed that, saying he was made to wait for most of the day.
