Crisis-hit health system ramping crisis deepens as official data shows thousands of hours lost to ‘police being ramped’

South Australia’s ramping chaos has deepened as police spend hundreds of hours “delayed” at hospitals after making record trips with criminals or dangerous patients, official figures show.

South Australia’s ramping chaos has deepened as police spend hundreds of hours ­“delayed” at hospitals after making record trips with ­criminals or dangerous patients, official figures show.

SA Police data, released under Freedom of Information laws, show officers made record emergency deliveries last financial year – almost seven a day – which had more than doubled in five years.

In fresh pressure on the embattled health system, FOI data showed annual “delay time” police waited in emergency departments had increased in a year, after almost doubling since 2019.

Despite officers spending longer with criminals or mental health patients in 12 months, amid wider workforce shortages, force data shows “delay incidents” fell over the past year.

The state’s top cop warned “mental health taskings are going through the roof” after demand on police during traumatic incidents increased almost 50 per cent in five years.

Detained mental health ­presentations to emergency departments similarly increased 116 per cent since 2019.

SA’s most senior mental health doctor, chief psychiatrist Dr John Brayley, blamed the surge on rising community substance abuse, especially with “stimulants”.

Authorities are, however, buoyed by the success of a ­special “co-responder” program, in which mental health clinicians and officers help patients find alternative paths to jail.

But a political row erupted as the opposition criticised Labor for “presiding over thousands of hours of police car ramping”, leaving officers “as some sort of makeshift ambulance service whilst crime is skyrocketing”.

Ministers highlighted a “major improvement” in hospital wait times as they criticised record delays occurred under a Liberal government.

The figures, released publicly for the first time, emerged as Premier Peter Malinauskas, and Labor come under fire over an election pledge to “fix the ramping crisis”.

Data showed police were “delayed” 1264 hours last year, compared with 1185 lost in 2022-23 and 1370 hours waiting the previous financial year.

It was 667 hours in 2019-20. There were 2538 police “conveyances” last year, compared with 2422 the previous year and 1175 five years prior. Average delays were a record 1 hour, 42 minutes last year. The next highest was 1 hour, 35 minutes in 2019-20 and 21-22.

Police and paramedics are given a 30-minute “benchmark” at ED triage before ­delays are recorded.

Opposition spokesman Jack Batty, who sought the FOI data, warned it was a “wake-up call” as police were asked to do “much more with so much less”.

“It must be enormously frustrating for our police to spend half their shift sitting around doing nothing at hospitals,” he said.

Police Commissioner Grant Stevens, who was unavailable for comment, has warned officers are frustrated at ­increasingly complex jobs with no extra resources.

A police spokeswoman said the 12-hour co-responder ­program had been “highly successful” since late-2022 with better care, which had relieved resourcing pressures.

Dr Brayley said complex ­assessments involved different factors, while officers were forced at times to stay at hospital due to “safety concerns”.

In a joint statement issued in response to inquiries, Health Minister Chris Picton and Police Minister Dan Cregan said there had been a “significant reduction” in delay incidents.

Mr Picton said: “The facts are clear from the (SA Police) data – police spent a record number of hours delayed at hospital under the Liberals’ watch.

“Hospitals are not jails and extended (police) attendance is sometimes necessary for managing potentially violent offenders for the protection of hospital staff and other patients.”

His spokeswoman later criticised Mr Batty as a “disgrace and embarrassment … to weigh into this when we know that the Liberals presided over the worst police hospital delays on record”.

Originally published as Crisis-hit health system ramping crisis deepens as official data shows thousands of hours lost to ‘police being ramped’