A HORROR day on Monday saw 126 people treated in the Launceston General Hospital's emergency department, forcing the hospital to consider transporting patients by ambulance to regional hospitals.
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LGH clinical services director Peter Renshaw said that the hospital would be forced to find beds in hospitals such as St Marys for elderly patients waiting for beds in aged care homes.
Even with the transfers some elective surgery would be cancelled, Dr Renshaw said.
"We are trying to shoehorn in as much surgery as we possibly can, but we expect that there will be some disappointed people," Dr Renshaw.
"Over the next couple of days we may be forced to move patients to district hospitals, particularly St Marys.
"Sadly, we may have to do this even though we know some families will be inconvenienced. We know it's not ideal, everyone knows it's not ideal, but they will get good treatment until we can bring them back.
"We certainly don't intend to send them out there and forget about them."
People will stay at St Marys for around five days, he said.
Yesterday at 3.15pm, 15 people were waiting for beds on the hospital's wards.
Early last week the hospital's chief executive John Kirwan said the hospital would have to close a ward, or 32 beds, if numbers kept "trending upwards".
By the end of last week, there were still just four beds closed and no people waiting for beds.
Monday's spike in emergency presentations forced the hospital's hand on bed management.
Until yesterday the hospital was able to decompress its bed crisis using beds it bought from private operators OneCare and Calvary.
Last week Mr Kirwan negotiated another four beds from OneCare. They are now full.
Monday was the hospital's second worst day on record, just 24 patients shy of the July tally of 150 people through the emergency department on a single day.
The emergency ward is built with 20 patient spaces. Regularly there are 40 patients in the department at any one time.
The overflow means patients were on trolleys and chairs around the nurses' station and up and down the department's narrow corridors.
None of the emergency department patients nor the 43 people treated in the region's swine flu clinic yesterday needed admission into the hospital, he said.
