New Rockhampton Hospital emergency department build announcement
Labor has given a last minute pledge of $50m for Rocky’s ‘war zone’ ED a week after the LNP’s brutal assessment.
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Queensland Labor have pledged $50 million to building a new Emergency Department at Rockhampton Hospital a week after its ED was described as a “war zone” by the shadow health minister.
Premier Steven Miles, in Rockhampton for the announcement with Health Minister Shannon Fentiman, said the investment was expected to double the number of ED treatment spaces from 14 to 28, deliver a new fracture clinic, expand the short stay unit and increase the number of resuscitation spaces from three.
Both he and Ms Fentiman denied last week’s brutal assessment of the ED’s capacity by shadow health minister Ros Bates had anything to do with the timing of today’s election commitment.
Ms Fentiman said the Labor had been in regular consultation about pressing ED issues since 2023 with Rockhampton Hospital staff, while Labor candidate for Rockhampton Craig Marshall and Keppel MP and assistant Health Minister Brittany Lauga had been pushing her for an upgrade.
“Since I became health minister last year I have met with the doctors and the nurses and the new chief executive and the (need for a) new emergency department has been a priority,” she said.
“After seeing it first hand I can tell you it’s too small’ .
“We absolutely need to expand the department to improve health flow through the hospital and make sure our hardworking health heroes have the resources they need to keep caring for Central Queenslanders.”
She said once the Master Plan for the hospital was completed early next year they could finalise bed numbers leaving about two years to build the new ED.
Ms Fentiman said despite the huge volume of patients and the at times cramped conditions, the average wait for ED patients was just 12 minutes.
In the June quarter there were 12,744 patients through Rockhampton ED but the Premier said there had been a 15 per cent improvement in patients seen on time and a 3.3 improvement of stretcher time, also known as ambulance ramping.
Ms Fentiman said other measures to improve patient flow included freeing up 30 beds using Zilzie Sunset Ridge aged care and investing in primary health care through a Rockhampton satellite hospital (location yet to be announced).
“That will make a big difference as people are presenting to the Rocky ED because they cannot find a bulk billing appointment,” she said.
Ms Fentiman said they would begin recruiting as soon as the master plan was finalised for the extra ED staff.
She said they were having success attracting skilled clinicians from across Australia and around the world with new anethesists arriving from as far afield Namibia and New Zealand.
Ms Bates said the LNP has already committed to a pipeline of hospital upgrades and new hospitals in its Better Health, More Services plan including Rockhampton Hospital.
“They’ve had a decade to upgrade the Rockhampton Hospital ED and have done nothing, despite Rockhampton having the worst ambulance ramping in regional Queensland,” she said.
“Under Labor, ambulance ramping has gone from just 1 per cent to 48 per cent, leaving one in every two patients ramped when they arrive in an ambulance.
“Only after the LNP shone a light on record ambulance ramping in Rockhampton and announced a plan to provide more space for the hospital has Labor tried desperately to distract from their health record.”
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