No guarantees ambulance ramping crisis at Cairns Hospital will be halted if change in government

Patients are lining hallways at Cairns Hospital, as ambulance ramping reaches a crisis point. But Labor — which has blamed the problem on the LNP — can’t give any guarantees of a fix.

• Ambulance ramping has reached “crisis point”
• Cairns Hospital reveals 12 new patient beds
• Massive surge in patient activity at Cairns Hospital
• Nurses pushed to the wall with extra shifts

PATIENTS are lining hallways at Cairns Hospital as ambulance ramping reaches a crisis point – but Labor, which has blamed the problem on the LNP, cannot give any guarantees of a fix.

The ALP’s assistant treasury spokesman, Andrew Leigh, joined the party’s Leichhardt candidate, Elida Faith, yesterday to call on the Morrison government to reinstate $7.2 million that it claims has been sliced from the hospital’s budget.

Labor candidate for Leichhardt Elida Faith and Labor's assistant shadow treasurer, Andrew Leigh in Cairns. PICTURE: STEWART MCLEAN

The LNP, however, maintains that Commonwealth funding for the Cairns and Hinterland Hospital and Health Service has risen 90.7 per cent to $242 million over the past six years.

The press conference was the third in a month Labor has held to bring attention to the Cairns Hospital funding matter.

It followed a “code yellow” being declared at the hospital on Tuesday night, due to a lack of resources.

Mr Leigh said that, if Labor was elected, the hospital would be in better shape than under the Coalition.

Labor's assistant shadow treasurer, Andrew Leigh and Labor candidate for Leichhardt Elida Faith talk with Crystalbrook Colection area general manager Joel Gordon in Cairns. PICTURE: STEWART MCLEAN

However, he could not give any guarantees ambulance ramping would no longer occur at the facility under a Shorten government.

“There’s always going to be unexpected events that hit a community,” he said.

“But what we’re seeing from the Coalition is a code yellow as a result of mismanagement – not as a result of an external disaster event.”

United Voice delegate and Cairns paramedic Jennifer Miran said ambulance ramping, which had been a chronic issue at the hospital for decades, had reached crisis point.

”We cannot sustain what is happening behind those walls,” she said.

She said patients were being lined up along hallways, blocking fire exits, as they awaited a bed.

The Queensland Government Air emergency rescue helicopter on its helipad near the Cairns Hospital. PICTURE: BRENDAN RADKE

“The hospital is not designed to have patients in hallways for hours at a time,” she said. “Something needs to be done: this is an absolute crisis.

“We need help and we need it now.”

CHHHS executive director of Cairns Services, Tina Chinery, confirmed a code yellow was activated at the hospital on Monday night and deactivated yesterday morning.

“The code yellow was activated to manage the high number of presentations with complex and critical conditions over the weekend, which, combined with flu presentations, created high demand for hospital beds,” she said.

When asked how much more funding the health service needed to avoid further code yellows, she said there was a commitment of an extra $1 million from the State Government to create more treatment spaces in the hospital’s emergency department.

Originally published as No guarantees ambulance ramping crisis at Cairns Hospital will be halted if change in government