Australian Medical Association Queensland president Nick Yim slams state gov

A top Queensland doctor has taken a swipe at the state government over funding for more ambulance officers instead of prioritising hospital beds.

Employing hundreds of extra ambulance officers will not solve the state’s health crisis as a bed drought and lack of hospital staff will mean even more patients ramped in carparks, top doctors claim.

Premier Steven Miles last week announced $129.5m to fund 268 Queensland Ambulance Service positions as part of the state budget.

But Australian Medical Association Queensland president Nick Yim says the priority should be to keep people out of emergency departments and hospital beds.

“It’s great having new hospitals and more ambulances but it would be more practical and cost-effective to invest in keeping people out of emergency departments and hospital beds in the first place,” Mr Yim said.

“The government has promised to invest in more ambulance officers.

“This will boost response times and we support it.

“But if we don’t have beds in our hospital wards for patients who need to be admitted and staff to operate them, we are just going to see more ambulance ramping.

“We have bed block in our hospitals because we have 1000 patients who are well enough to be discharged but cannot because they are waiting for aged-care places or NDIS packages.”

Ramping at Cairns Hospital. Picture: Brendan Radke

Dr Yim said the federal government missed the opportunity to make real changes to Medicare, tackle critical GP shortages and address cost-of-living pressures in the health system.

“We don’t want to see the state government go the same way, particularly in an election year,” he said.

The AMAQ reports that patients being readmitted to emergency departments because they have not been able to get the care they need, such as vital elective surgery or follow-up treatment and preventive health services with a regular GP.

“There must be systems integration between hospitals and general practice to facilitate effective patient handover and referrals of patients to their GP and allied health care teams,” Dr Yim said.

“Patients who see their GP within seven days of hospital discharge are much less likely to be readmitted.”

The peak body commends the state government for trialling their Patient Care facilitators proposal, which funds practice nurses to co-ordinate care for newly discharged patients, and called for this to be rolled out statewide.