Toddler waits seven hours for stitches during patient surge

Bendigo Health has told staff it has activated a stand-by code yellow emergency response. (Supplied: Bendigo Health)

A regional Victorian mother says her toddler waited for hours, covered in blood, for help at a hospital emergency room she described as "absolute bedlam".

Bendigo Health says the hospital is admitting about a dozen more patients each day compared to the year prior.

A Central Victorian mother says her toddler's "traumatic" wait for stitches for a head wound stretched to almost seven hours as the hospital struggled with a surge in patients.

Rykie Yates said she took her 20-month-old daughter Evangeline to Bendigo Health late last month after she split her head open on a fireplace.

She said when they arrived at the major regional hospital, it was in a state of "absolute bedlam".

Evangaline Yates was taken to Bendigo Health after splitting her head open on a fireplace. (Supplied: Rykie Yates)

"It was absolutely packed," she said. "The corridor was full … there were stretchers lined up along the wall.

"The staff were clearly stressed and run off their feet and treating people wherever there was room."

Ms Yates said her daughter "screamed and screamed" during the wait and eventually both were covered in blood.

"At that point, I scooped her up and barged into the waiting area and … demanded help."

Rykie Yates says she was traumatised after being left covered in her daughter's blood. (Supplied: Rykie Yates)

She said the staff were amazing and that she did not blame them for the wait.

"They supported me as a traumatised mother. I was hysterical, I was crying," she said.

"But the fact that it took me parading out there covered in my daughter's blood, demanding help, is not OK.

The number of people attending Bendigo Health's emergency department has continued to surge in the weeks since Ms Yates's visit.

It experienced ambulance ramping twice last month, according to the Victorian Ambulance Union, resulting in paramedics treating patients outside the hospital.

"[Paramedics'] job isn't to treat patients in hospitals," union secretary Danny Hill said.

"We have ambulance paramedics out there [in the community] because we need that treatment brought to patients.

"When they're ramped at the hospital, they're not available to do that."

Danny Hill says paramedics were treating patients outside Bendigo Health. (ABC News: Peter Healy)

A code yellow is declared when a hospital faces an internal emergency and its normal systems are under significant pressure.

The last time the hospital declared code yellow was April 14.

An email to staff