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THE MIldura Base Public Hospital has declared a "code yellow", which means it has no more capacity for new patients and waiting times in the emergency department could be more than 12 hours.

Hospital management has pleaded with the Sunraysia community to avoid seeking treatment at the emergency department if possible.

Chief executive Terry Welch has posted a video to Facebook to explain the situation and ask for the community's support. He said the hospital was "out of capacity".

Mr Welch said anyone with injury or illness that could be dealt with by a GP, nurse-on-call services or a pharmacy should seek out one of those alternatives.

He said the hospital needed the public's help to "take pressure off this emergency department".

The hospital has built a real-time digital dashboard (see below, or go to the live link here) to enable to public to know how busy the emergency department is. At 10.30am on Thursday, ED waiting times to see a clinician ranged between five-and-a-half hours and almost 13 hours. The longest wait to see a clinician for patients already under treatment was more than 19 hours.