‘There are too many patients’: Palaszczuk on QLD’s hospital crisis

Annastacia Palaszczuk’s argument about the crisis that has gripped southeast Queensland’s hospital network boils down to a pretty simple point: There are too many patients.

ANNASTACIA Palaszczuk’s argument about the crisis that has gripped southeast Queensland’s hospital network boils down to a pretty simple point.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the health system that her Government is providing, according to the Queensland Premier, it’s just that there are too many patients.

HOSPITALS AT FULL CAPACITY

Southeast Queensland public hospitals at full capacity

Annastacia Palazczuk says the reason behind the state’s hospital crisis is that there are “too many patients”. Picture: Annette Dew

And the blame for that, she reckons, lies with everybody but her Labor administration.

It’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison who is at fault, it’s former premier Campbell Newman who should be blamed, it’s the flu, it’s old people, it’s sick people.

Yet if Morrison is the problem then our hospitals should have ground to a halt long ago given the same Federal funding model has existed for years.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk is facing critique over the health crisis gripping the state. AAP Image: Dan Peled

If Newman’s cuts caused this system crash, why haven’t the losses of essential services currently being experienced by our hospitals been occurring constantly?

If aged-care and NDIS patients taking up hospitals beds because of a lack of Federal funding was the issue, why aren’t the health systems in other states experiencing precisely the same problem?

The State Government has been grilled over hospitals in the southeast reaching capacity. Pic: Supplied

The Premier can attempt to deflect all it likes, in the end people know it is the Queensland Government that is responsible for the Queensland health system.

That’s why it is the Queensland Government that constantly brags about its record health funding.

That’s why it is the Queensland Government that has talked up all the extra hospital staff it has hired.

And it was the Queensland Government that proudly blew money on changing a hospital name simply because it vexed them that they didn’t get to make the decision.

Patients don’t care about the politics.

They just want the Premier to fix the problem.