Patricia Skeffington was taken to hospital by ambulance yesterday morning with breathing difficulties – but was discharged hours later, despite testing positive to COVID, to recover at her aged care unit where she lives alone.

“She rang me in a panic yesterday morning because she could hardly breathe,” her son Martin Skeffington told InDaily this morning.

“Every time she stood up, she felt like she was going to faint.

“She had pain when breathing in, a sore throat and she had a really bad dry cough.

“So I told her to call an ambulance.”

The great-grandmother had been tested for COVID the day before but was awaiting her results, which came through positive while she was in hospital.

As reported by InDaily in October, Patricia Skeffington had only recently lost her 89-year-old husband, Bernard “Brian” Skeffington, who died in hospital after five days in intensive care following a lengthy wait for an ambulance.

Martin Skeffington said that this time the ambulance response time was “good” but what followed for his mother was not.

He said that in her condition, with high blood pressure and a history of emphysema, she should not have been sent home and he believes it’s a symptom of a system unable to cope with the state’s COVID outbreak.

“She’s still very weak and exhausted and barely getting around,” he told InDaily.

“She gets up, walks a few steps and has to sit down again.

“She didn’t want to go home. She didn’t feel safe and she didn’t feel well enough to go home. Both she and myself stated that.

“I think it’s a system problem. I don’t know whether there’s no beds available. It feels like it’s code for ‘you’ll be better off at home because there’s no beds here’.

“I understand the strain that the hospitals are under and the doctors are under but if we are supposedly ready for this then she should have been accommodated with a hospital admission which would have happened in normal circumstances.”

Martin Skeffington, who is a clinical nurse at a private hospital, said a patient in his mother’s condition would not have been sent home from his workplace.

“I know how unwell she was and knowing her medical history as well,” he said.

“Being a nurse, at my hospital, someone with the blood pressure she was recording, we don’t send them home even if it’s a plain discharge.

“Her blood pressure was still too high.

“She was complaining of having a bad headache because she had been lying with no pillow which I find ridiculous.

“In hospital for the whole 12 hours she was there she didn’t have a pillow, they rolled a blanket up and stuck that under her head.

“She hadn’t eaten all day because she was too sick to eat.

“I’m upset and frustrated and it’s exhausting.

“I’m very worried.

“This has certainly knocked her for six getting COVID.”

Martin Skeffington yesterday posted about his mother’s ordeal on Facebook.

“Not happy. SA health is in total disarray,” he wrote.

“My 85 year old mother was taken to hospital (RAH) this morning with breathing difficulties, unable to stand and feeling faint with symptoms of Covid. She has a history of mild emphysema. Her Covid swab taken yesterday has returned POSITIVE.

“Instead of being admitted to hospital they have decided to send her home on her own. I formally stated to the hospital that I totally disagreed with this decision given her medical history.

“I am unable to be with her as my wife who spent an hour with her yesterday in a car to get her tested is considered a close contact so has to isolate for 7 days – awaiting her results. My test from today was fortunately Negative but am still symptomatic and won’t feel comfortable until Dawn’s result is also negative.

“Clearly the hospitals cannot accommodate the most vulnerable due to being overstretched. Although mum is stable at the moment under normal circumstances she would have been admitted.”

In an update he wrote: “Just gets better. Mum waited 4 hours for transport. Sent home in a transport van with 1 other covid patient, 1 staff. Took about an hour to get to Plympton. Arrived home at 10pm – out you hop off you go!

“12 hours in hospital  – no pillow, just a rolled up blanket. So went home with a blinding headache,” he wrote.

“Blood pressure checked an hour before discharge – 203/66! Rechecked manually 170/60 but OK to go home? Not eaten all day, offered curried egg sandwich, too sick to eat.

“Later offered a hot meal which went cold. Totally exhausted by time she got home. Hope she wakes up feeling better tomorrow.”

Premier Steven Marshall was asked about the situation on ABC Radio this morning after a friend of the family called in to detail the case.

“Well we are dealing with I think about 98 to 99 per cent of people who are COVID positive in South Australia at home,” Marshall said.

“We put extraordinary systems in place to be able to support them and the vast majority of people prefer to be in their homes not in hospitals.

“In the early days… we transferred everybody to Tom’s Court Hotel… but it’s a different.”

Pressed on the matter, Marshall said: “I don’t make the clinical decisions, obviously the clinicians are on the front line, they make those decisions.”

“We have got to leave these decisions up to the clinicians but what I can say is that we are well within our capacity in the hospital system across South Australia at the moment, we flexed up our hospital bed availability in the lead up to opening the borders on the 23^rd of November,” he said.

“As of yesterday we had around 120 patients who were in hospital and that was well under our capacity to service.

“Importantly, we have 12 people in ICU – that’s stabilised over the last couple of days and just the one person on a ventilator so all those other clinical decisions have got to be made by doctors, nurses, health administrators, not by politicians.

“Look if this person is keen to get a review we can certainly do that but the reality is we are leaving these decisions in the hands of the experts.”

InDaily has asked SA Health for a response.

Opposition health spokesperson Chris Picton said “there’s no doubt that our health system is completely overwhelmed and underprepared”.

“My heart goes out to Mrs Skeffington who not only has suffered with the death of her husband following an ambulance service delay, but now can’t get the help that she herself needs,” he said.

“An 85-year-old with COVID, with a history of emphysema, with breathing difficulties – a few months ago she would have had all the resources in the world thrown at her.

“Now with COVID out of control she is sent home after 12 hours in hospital without even as much as a pillow. Sent home with no ability for support because her family are also in isolation.

“All South Australians can only imagine in horror if this was their mother.

“Every day Steven Marshall is standing up and telling people that everything in the health system is under control – but the reality is completely different. He’s completely lost touch with the chaos and catastrophe that is happening all around him.”