Cairns Hospital wait time blowout blamed on massive emergency numbers

Cairns Hospital bosses have spoken out after a blowout in emergency department queues led to almost a third of patients not being seen within clinically recommended timeframes.

RECORD emergency admissions have been blamed for a spike in Cairns Hospital queues that led to almost a third of patients not being seen within clinically recommended wait times.

Cairns and Hinterland Hospital and Health Service acting executive director of Cairns service Marie Kelly laid out the numbers to put the 6 per cent spike in the January-March quarter into context – starting with the hospital’s most overworked day yet.

“As was widely reported, the first three months of 2021 was an especially busy period for Cairns Hospital, when we received record levels of patients,” she said.

“The ED experienced its busiest day in history on February 16, 2021, with 286 presentations in just 24 hours.

Almost one-third of emergency patients at Cairns Hospital are not being seen within clinically recommended wait times.

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“This was a 4 per cent increase in the previous record (275) set just two days after Christmas 2020.

“Overall, there was a total of 75,491 presentations to Cairns Hospital ED during 2020, which was 11,000 more than there were five years ago.”

Ms Kelly said all Category 1 cases – the most urgent – were seen within clinically recommended time frames over the three-month period.

“The average waiting time in the emergency department was 16 minutes during the first quarter of 2021,” she said.

High hopes have been pinned on the $26.4m emergency department expansion to bring more beds online, with construction to start in September.

“Our Access to Care Project provides actions addressing flow across the hospital,” Ms Kelly said.

“This includes initiatives such as redesigning the model of care for medical patients; early senior clinical decision making; improving patient flow; and improving our ED mental health services.”

She added that the Cairns University Hospital expansion project would bring on more beds and ease emergency department pressure.

“This project is currently in its planning phase,” she said.

Health Minister Yvette D’Ath said Labor’s funding to the Cairns health service was $1.083bn in 2021-22 – up 62 per cent from the LNP’s last budget in government.

“When the LNP were last in government they sacked 4800 health care staff, including over 1700 nurses,” she said.

The LNP has called on Queensland Health to revert to the monthly publication of hospital ramping data after a switch to quarterly reports last month.

Opposition health spokeswoman Ros Bates said up-to-date public statistics were crucial to transparency within the health system.

“The LNP has been inundated with horror stories this year about the health crisis,” she said.

Originally published as Cairns Hospital wait time blowout blamed on massive emergency numbers