'Makeshift' treatment areas and long waits reported at major Adelaide hospital ED

Patients waited more than 13 hours to be treated at the biggest emergency department in Adelaide's northern suburbs, which has been operating at "crisis" levels for months, according to SA's doctors' union.

A representative of the South Australian Salaried Medical Officers' Association visited the Lyell McEwin Hospital on September 8 and submitted the allegations in a report to SafeWork SA.

In the report, the union representative said on that day, more than 100 people — including 12 stuck outside in ambulances — were seeking medical care at the emergency department, which has a capacity of 51 patients.

"Makeshift" treatment sites were set up in the waiting area, and patients were treated in parenting, interview and decontamination rooms, the union representative alleged.

The union representative wrote that doctors reported patients were "generally waiting between 13 to 14 hours to be seen", including one person with a dislocated hip who waited on the ramp in an ambulance for "hours".

"You can only imagine how distressing that is for the patients and for those frontline health workers," chief industrial officer Bernadette Mulholland said.

"All they are trying to do is provide the care to that particular patient or any patient that has been waiting for a long period of time."

The union representative submitted that workers had reported the emergency department capacity had been at "crisis levels" for the last three months.

'Unprecedented' demand: minister

On Friday, SA Health Minister Blair Boyer apologised to the patients left waiting hours for treatment at the hospital.

"These numbers that we are seeing of people presenting [to the emergency department], of people waiting, are unprecedented numbers," he said.

In response, the state government announced on Friday an additional 20 beds would open at the Lyell McEwin Hospital the following week.

The unit will cater for older people who no longer require acute hospital treatment, but are awaiting long-term care.

Mr Boyer pointed to the amount of patients across the Northern Adelaide Local Health Network waiting for a bed in the aged care system as a point of stress on department capacity.

"We are losing those [beds] to the system, to be able to accommodate the people waiting in the ED, and then the ED doesn't have the same capacity to accommodate people who are in the back of the ambulance at the ramp," he said.

But that was criticised by opposition spokesperson Josh Teague.

"We've heard so much deflection from Minister Boyer — and Labor state and federal fighting amongst themselves is far from what South Australians deserve right now," he said.

Public hospitals fall under the jurisdiction of the state government, while the aged care system is overseen by the federal government.