‘Absolute collapse’: GPs to blame for Qld health crisis, says Miles

Queensland GPs have blasted Deputy Premier Steven Miles for blaming them for Queensland’s overstretched hospital system.

The state’s hospital workers are “getting smashed” but the Palaszczuk Government is not fully responsible because of an “absolute collapse” in access to GPs, Deputy Premier Steven Miles says.

Mr Miles said Monday had seen “unprecedented demand” as there was a peak of respiratory illness and GPs refusing to see patients with those symptoms was making the pressures worse.

He said the influx was similar to the flu peak of 2019, just with Covid added on top.

“(There’s) Lots and lots of people who can’t get to see a GP, even if they have a regular GP many GPs are declining to see people with respiratory illnesses, sometimes before they get a Covid test, sometimes not at all, and that is driving lots and lots more people to our emergency departments,” he said.

But Royal Australian College of GPs president Dr Karen Price said it was not right to blame GPs for the overstretched hospital system.

“We are flat out delivering Covid-19 vaccines, boosters and influenza vaccines, helping people who have delayed or avoided consultations and screenings during the pandemic and also dealing with rising rates of chronic disease, a mental health crisis, an ageing population, and more and more patients with multiple conditions who require complex, comprehensive, and ongoing care,” she said.

Dr Price said while some practices had the capacity to see patients with respiratory illness, some didn’t have the resources to implement appropriate infection controls.

Dr Price said the pandemic was not over and if Covid spread through a practice and forced doctors to isolate, the impact on the community could be dire.

“Now is not the time to throw blame at GPs and general practice teams, we are doing our best in very challenging circumstances and need the full support of all levels of government,” she said.

Deputy Premier Steven Miles. Picture: Steve Pohlner

Mr Miles said it was very hard for modellers to determine how bad this “flu season” would be.

“We have worked with them to plan as best as is possible for this peak in demand but we only operate part of the system,” he said.

“It is the part of the system that is last resort, and so it’s the part of the system where the problems are most obvious.

Mr Miles said there had been an “absolute collapse” in primary health care, meaning a lot more people were heading to emergency departments.

“It’s also seeing lots of people delay care and so then when they go to get care, their condition is much more acute and at that point in time they do need the specialist services of our emergency departments.”

He said his thoughts were with the health workers because “I’ve seen what weeks like this look like within our health system”.

“Our health workers are getting smashed, they are working really really hard,” he said.

He said staff rosters and staffing levels were being affected by the fact workers were falling ill too.

He said it was “not true” that the health crisis was building even before Covid, despite the fact numerous health experts have said that.

He said there had been a “consistent increase in demand that was exacerbated by Covid”.

“Now that we have both Covid endemic in the community as well as flu, as well as I think there are six other respiratory viruses spreading quite freely now that we don’t have all of those social distance measures in place, that is that is driving a massive peak in demand on our emergency departments at the time of year when you would expect it to, at the time of the year when we have traditionally experienced those flu peaks,” he said.

“It’s been a couple of years since we’ve had one but certainly, this is what the flu peak of 2019 looked like with Covid added on top.”

Health Minister Yvette D’Ath said there were 520 long-stay patients in Queensland hospitals who needed an NDIS or aged care package, 462 patients in public beds and 49 in private beds with Covid and 1643 health staff isolating because of Covid on top of normal absences.

“We are probably going to be experiencing our worst flu season that we have seen in almost a decade, and it’s coming at us quickly,” Ms ‘D’Ath said.