As ramping rockets to record levels, the government says it is building a bigger health system

As the government boasts it’s “Building a Bigger Health System”, demand for hospital beds and ambulances continues to rise, as does the overdue queue for elective surgery. Have your say.

Adelaide ran out of emergency department beds this week, as September’s ramping figures are yet to be released.

Surging demand saw the system buckling — at 3pm on Thursday the metropolitan ED system was treating 367 patients in its combined capacity of 335, with patients on trolleys in corridors.

Flinders Medical Centre was treating 85 people in its 63 capacity ED, Royal Adelaide Hospital was treating 79 in its 69 capacity ED and Lyell McEwin was treating 68 in its 59 capacity ED.

Soaring demand threatens to soak up much of the government’s expansion of the health system, its own reasons for record ramping indicate.

From its election pledge to “fix” ramping, the government has switched to its heavily advertised “Building a Bigger Health System” strategy.

However, a chunk of the bigger system — adding more than 600 beds — will be sucked up by growing demand.

The campaign comes as ramping rockets to record levels, EDs are chronically clogged and the elective surgery waiting queue blows out to 22,037 people, including 4612 overdue.

In recent months the government has linked ramping to growing demand with an ageing population dealing with chronic illnesses.

Health Minister Chris Picton. Picture: Kelly Barnes

When he released the August ramping figures of 5284 hours, Health Minister Chris Picton noted there were 10 per cent more ambulance patients taken to hospital and 6 per cent more patients in beds every night compared to the same month last year – or 155 more beds full nightly.

In releasing July’s record ramping figure of 5539 hours, Mr Picton said: “General medicine inpatients in metro hospitals peaked in July with 1086 patients across acute medical and geriatric units. This is a huge increase of 42 per cent since November 2022.

“There were 1290 more triple-0 calls and 999 more ambulance attendances at hospital compared to July last year.”

Releasing the June figures of 3798 hours ramped, he said demand for cancer services in the north rose more than 12 per cent in the past year and oncology outpatient appointments increased from 10,443 to 11,448 in a year.

Releasing May’s 4773 hours figure, Mr Picton noted: “The average number of patients in our hospitals with a length of stay greater than 21 days has surged by 21.1 per cent in the past 12 months. At the Royal Adelaide it’s a 42.5 per cent increase.”

A government spokesman said building more than 600 extra beds would deliver extra capacity resulting in faster treatment and less access block.

“When people get stuck in our hospitals, and have nowhere else to go, it means sick people are unable to get through the front door — that’s why we’re delivering this much-needed capacity for South Australia’s growing and ageing population,” he said.