‘Smashed’ by demand
QUEENSLAND Deputy Premier Steven Miles confirmed that a detailed business case for the Cairns Health Innovation Centre project had “been given the green light to proceed” by Queensland Health.
It comes as state emergency departments struggle to cope with a surge in demand, leading to long delays for patients in Cairns on Monday.
“It’s important to get the planning right on these projects as they are community assets for decades,” Mr Miles said. However, the details of the preliminary business case (PBC) have not been released.
“While this development is still under consideration by the department, the PBC is being treated as commercialin-confidence,” a CHHHS spokesman said.
There was a warning on Wednesday that the intense demand on hospital emergency wards would only worsen in coming weeks. Mr Miles said that Queensland health workers “are getting smashed”.
“Monday we saw record demand on EDs,” he said.
“This is the peak of the respiratory illness season … and we also have a lot of primary health providers not treating respiratory illness for fear of exposing their patients to Covid, so that’s putting even more pressure on hospitals.”
He denied that Queensland hospitals had been in crisis since before Covid, but said Covid had exacerbated the recent increase in demand.
“There are some things that hospitals can’t plan for, including the number of staff getting sick and unavailable for rosters,” he said.
“If you’re stuck waiting for the care that you need, please be assured that our health staff are doing the best they can and it’s because they are seeing someone else whose condition is more urgent.”
Health Minister Yvette D’Ath warned that the worst flu season in a decade was “coming at us quickly” as she pleaded for the federal government to subsidise or provide more free flu vaccinations ahead of a horror winter.
She said GPs should not be refusing to see patients with respiratory illnesses as Deputy Premier Steven Miles said they were exacerbating issues amid “an absolute collapse in access to primary healthcare”.
But Royal Australian College of GPs president Karen Price said it was not right to blame GPs for the overstretched hospital system.
Her comments were echoed by AMAQ president Chris Perry who also said the Medicare bulk-billing rate needed reviewing because it hadn’t kept up with inflation.
“We need to increase the rebates so that GPs can stay afloat,” he said.
State Opposition leader David Crisafulli said both the state and federal governments needed to do more to help ease pressure.