Crisis in SA hospitals: doctors

Unprecedented overcrowding in South Australian's public hospitals has contributed to the deaths of patients in a health system described by some doctors in an audit as "catastrophic".

SA Health confirmed on Friday that the death of a mental health patient has been referred to the coroner.

The patient was sent home from Royal Adelaide Hospital, allegedly as a result of overcrowding.

SA's Salaried Medical Officers Association recently conducted an audit of hospitals, including the Royal Adelaide where they say three significant incidents occurred in one day which had the potential for life threatening outcomes.

These included one involving an emergency department patient who was moved from the waiting room, down corridors to a cubicle before doctors were told the patient had been working in a high Ebola endemic location.

It emerged the patient was a low risk but the Association said the case highlighted that severe overcrowding could lead to a major catastrophe when a public health disaster unexpectedly emerged.

The audit quoted doctors speaking of their stress and panic, of "near misses", and of the extreme and immediate health, safety and welfare risks for staff and patients.

Association president Dr David Pope told AAP the overcrowding was the worst he had seen.

"It is extremely serious and the doctors are very angry and distressed. Patients are suffering bad outcomes and even deaths," he said.

"It is completely against their morals and ethics."

The association also referred to long waits for mental health patients in emergency, some of whom had been shackled to beds.

Health Minister Jack Snelling agreed that mental health patients waited unacceptably long periods in emergency departments, to be admitted to acute mental health beds.

He said he is concerned by the audit's findings.

But he said it was simplistic to say the answer was to just open more beds, saying there needed to be better patient flow through hospitals.