Opinion: Yvette D’Ath’s response to health failing is shameful

Even for a government that is doggedly unwilling to accept responsibility for its failings, Yvette D’Ath’s off-base remarks about ambulance delays take the cake, writes Kylie Lang.

It is hard to imagine a worse response to the latest damning revelations about ambulance ramping than that provided by Health Minister Yvette D’Ath.

Even for this government – which is doggedly unwilling to accept responsibility for its failings – D’Ath’s wildly off-base remarks take the cake.

Following an explosive front page story – in which The Sunday Mail laid bare a Queensland Ambulance dossier confirming at least 20 people died after paramedics took too long to respond – D’Ath refused to acknowledge the truth.

Speaking at a sod turning ceremony for a new satellite hospital (which Queensland needed yesterday but never mind), she said it was “not fair” to the QAS to link ambulance delays as a factor behind a person’s death.

Health Minister Yvette D'Ath says it’s not fair to link ambulance delays to deaths. Picture: Liam Kidston

She said the public would interpret that to mean it “contributed to that person’s death”.

Well, yes, we’re not stupid, and the link between the two could not be any clearer.

Here are just a few of the tragic deaths our newspaper revealed: A woman with severe abdominal pains waited nine hours for help, her family calling triple-0 six times; a bleeding man was found hunched over a bathtub after a 90-minute delay; and a person was “staring blankly and purple” after a three-hour wait.

Paramedics are stretched to breaking point as they scramble to meet demand.

I’ve spent hours talking to paramedics, including at the busy Beenleigh station, and touring the impressive QAS headquarters at Kedron where calls are taken and jobs dispatched, and I can tell you that these people are dedicated, selfless and passionate about their work.

They don’t want to fail – but the reality is the system is failing them, just as it is failing us all.

The more than 20 deaths that occurred in the 16 months between January 2021 and April 2022 are symptomatic of a badly broken health system.

Yet all the minister responsible can dish up is a ham-fisted denial that ambulance ramping and delays are directly related to those lost lives, and imply we might hurt the feelings of paramedics by being “not fair”.

She also, and equally infuriatingly, has the gall to say that reducing ambulance wait times in Queensland will “take some time” and “effort across the whole of the health sector”.

Presumably that means neither D’Ath nor her predecessor Steven Miles have bothered to expend time or effort to date – and the issue may well remain in the too-hard basket.

Meanwhile, Queenslanders are dying.

Shame on you Minister.