Dr. Mick Molloy:

Working in the emergency department, that would be a very common problem. Emergency departments, as an environment, in general have between 12 and 20 spaces and they can have between 50 and 60 patients in them at any one time, but they are staffed for the 12 to 20 spaces, not for the 60. If we have a sudden surge tonight at the department I work in and I go looking for additional nursing staff, I will be told they are not available and there is nowhere to find them at short notice. It is okay if we want to book agency staff for next week or the week after for planned leave periods but we cannot get them at short notice, which means the staff who are there have to work harder and are under a lot more pressure, not getting their breaks and not even getting toilet breaks at times because of the volume of work in those emergency departments.