Adelaide doctors fear dire hospital crisis is 'just the beginning'

Adelaide doctors fear the city's ongoing hospital crisis is just the beginning after staff reported feeling broken and burnt out.

The Doctors Union has lifted the lid on what it's like inside the Royal Adelaide Hospital after confronting findings from its visit last month.

One worker said: "Staff are f------ broken", while another said, "There's significant sick leave, morale is low, there is fatigue and burnout".

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"This is probably where the pressure on the system escalated," Doctors Union chief industrial officer Bernadette Mulholland said.

"There is so many problems within our health system it's really hard to work out which one to choose first, or do first."

Adelaide hospitals remain under code yellow, which has forced the cancellation of a number of elective surgeries, two weeks on from when the emergency was declared.

At the same time, the city is dealing with a wave of the flu, whooping cough, gastro, COVID-19 and the common flu.

Health Minister Chris Picton today failed to reveal a clear plan to ease the code yellow restrictions.

"It may well be there's changes in terms of those things individually but in terms of elective surgery, we're monitoring it on a day-by-day basis," he said.

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"We are continuing to see significant numbers of Covid and the flu patients in our hospital system."

But doctors fear code yellow may be introduced again even after it is lifted.

"You've got a decade of problems and you've got winter where we see increases of our winter viruses," Mulholland said.

"I can only assume that we're just seeing the beginning of what could be a very bumpy winter for our hospitals."