Summit called to deal with population pressure on Queensland health system

The Queensland government will hold a major summit to address the need for more health workers to be attracted to the state, as the full extent of Queensland’s booming population becomes clear.

The meeting on Tuesday next week will involve “key stakeholders” including health workers unions, the Australian Medical Association Queensland, health education bodies and private hospital providers.

Queensland Health Minister Yvette D’Ath will meet with key stakeholders to discuss how to deal with population pressures hitting the health system.Credit: Matt Dennien

The meeting comes as the state’s hospital and health system faces significant pressure after the pandemic combined with population pressures.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics this week released data showing Queensland has seen the highest migration of any state or territory, with 94,000 people moving to Queensland from both interstate and overseas over the 12 months to 31 Mar 2022.

That works out to a population growth rate of 1.8 per cent, compared to WA which recorded 1.1 per cent, and NSW and Victoria, which saw growth rates of 0.6 per cent and 0.7 per cent respectively.

Queensland Health Minister Yvette D’Ath said 94,000 people was more than the population of Rockhampton, and such an influx would put added pressure on multiple services, but especially Health.

“With so many people moving to Queensland, we’re already working to address population pressures,” she said.

“As well as investing in new hospitals and expanding current hospitals, we need to ensure we attract those frontline workers to Queensland.”

Interstate migration made up a little over half of the numbers, while 30 per cent was from “natural increase” (births minus deaths), and international migration, which was severely impacted by the pandemic, made up 12.7 per cent.

One focus of the summit will be to look at ways to sustainably attract more overseas doctors, nurses and other health professionals to help boost local numbers.

Another scheme already floated by the government is to encourage nurses who have already retired to return in mentor roles, while not affecting their pensions.

D’Ath denied this was a Band-Aid solution to staffing issues when asked about the plan last weekend, saying it was meant to increase the level of experience in the nursing sector.

“These are nurses who may have retired in the last couple of years, may have even been a bit longer than that,” she said.

“We want to find that flexibility for them to be able to come back and even if that’s part-time so that they can help us mentor through, but they’re out there, we know.”

The government has come under fire in recent weeks for pressure being put on the health system flowing on to patient harm.

The deaths of at least 15 people in south-east Queensland have been linked to ambulance waits and stretched hospital systems since early 2021, in documents released by the state opposition after being obtained in a Right to Information request.

“Every single one of these Queenslanders and their families are owed answers by the state government,” opposition leader David Crisafulli said when releasing the figures.

D’Ath said every death was tragic, but insisted it was “not fair” to health workers to blame those deaths on specific delays.

Documents released by the government in response to a Question on Notice from the Opposition have revealed that at the height of the third Omicron wave in June, one patient was left on a stretcher waiting for a bed at Logan Hospital for nearly eight hours – 479 minutes.

That was closely followed by a patient waiting 476 minutes at Gold Coast University Hospital and 473 minutes at Redcliffe Hospital.

Just 35 per cent of patients at Logan Hospital were loaded off an ambulance stretcher and into the emergency department within clinically recommended guideline of 30 minutes over the period of April to June, while across the state it was 55 per cent.

The Palaszczuk government has previously announced plans to build three new hospitals, deliver seven satellite hospitals, build a new Queensland Cancer Centre and deliver 11 hospital expansion projects as part of the $23.6 billion in the health budget this year.