RAMPING CURE CALL
A CAIRNS-BASED doctor believes an ambulance ramping crisis at Cairns Hospital is a very visible symptom of a critical staffing shortage within the emergency department.
Australian Medical Association Queensland council member Dr David Shepherd was commenting ahead of a roundtable of frustrated doctors who believe the statewide issue of clogged emergency departments needs urgent attention.
QUEENSLAND doctors are so fed-up with the Palaszczuk government’s inaction on clogged emergency departments they have made the unprecedented move to tackle the deadly bed-block mess themselves.
On Wednesday night, the Australian Medical Association Queensland gathered frustrated medicos at the first of a series of meetings to urgently address ambulance ramping and build a five-year ED action plan after being left disappointed by the budget’s lack of health funding.
Shock new ramping data, revealed on Thursday, shows the statewide target to get patients transferred off ambulance stretchers within 30 minutes was missed by more than 20 per cent during July 2020 and April this year.
The longest time a patient waited during November last year was 7.8 hours, a new Question on Notice has shown.
Patients were also forced to wait 7.9 hours during December, March and April.
These are just the latest numbers on ramping in a long line of stories highlighting the need for change to protect vulnerable patients.
The AMAQ said there were too few beds to meet the demands of a growing population and patients plus burnt-out medics were suffering and the state needed at least 1500 more beds and hundreds more staff.
“This roundtable group will work on a long-term statewide plan to get EDs out of a vicious cycle of crisis upon crisis. Our public hospitals need new models of care, as well as more funding,” AMAQ chief Chris Perry said.
The identity of doctors and health staff, including emergency doctors, inpatient consultants and medical administrators giving feedback at the series of roundtables will be kept secret by the AMAQ to protect their jobs.
While welcoming a $2bn hospital building fund, Professor Perry said the real need was funding for additional beds. “Unless that is addressed, ambulance ramping will continue,” he said.
“It’s all very well promising billions of dollars for bricks and mortar sometime in the future but what about the heart and soul of our health system – the people?
“Right now, Queensland needs at least 1500 more hospitals beds and hundreds more staff in intensive care, mental health and general wards statewide.”
Professor Perry questioned who would use the new buildings and car parks “if our doctors and nurses are burnt out and we can’t recruit enough people to provide high quality medical care?”
Opposition health spokeswoman Ros Bates said no Queenslander should be lying on a stretcher crying out for attention for more than the clinically recommended 30 minutes.
“Where in the world would people expect to lay on a stretcher in their darkest moment for nearly eight hours?” she said. AMAQ’s budget submission asked for $1.65bn for a range of initiatives including fair access to EDs and hospital beds, mental health support, palliative care, maternity services and addiction management.
Health Minister Yvette D’Ath defended the ramping figures, saying even during the busiest periods, 100 per cent of the most urgent category 1 patients were treated within clinically recommended time frames.
“We don’t want to see any ED patients waiting for long periods, but patients are always triaged according to their acuity, not the order in which they arrive,” she said.
“Our record $22.2bn health budget includes $482.5m this financial year to tackle the unprecedented demand in our public hospitals, including our busy emergency departments.”