Queensland police sitting ramped for hours as mental health system cracks

A top cop has spoken of police being forced to ramp for hours outside Queensland hospitals with mental health patients as they deal with almost 1000 calls a week from desperate Queenslanders threatening suicide.

Police are sitting ramped outside Queensland hospitals for hours minding mental health patients because health workers are too busy.

A top cop has confirmed hospital pressures are flowing over to his officers too, with police responding to about 140 calls a day from desperate Queenslanders threatening suicide - a 58 per cent increase in six years.

In the same week chaotic ambulance ramping plagued emergency departments as Triple-Zero calls hit historic highs on Monday, The Courier-Mail can reveal police are also wasting “many hours” ramped outside hospitals.

Domestic, Family Violence and Vulnerable Persons Command Acting Assistant Commissioner Peter Brewer said police were responding to about 976 calls per week from people threatening suicide or experiencing other episodes amid the state’s mental health crisis.

And like the ambulance service, “we are affected by ramping issues”, he told parliament’s Mental Health Select Committee.

Ramping at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital in Herston. Picture: Liam Kidston

“There can be delays of many hours at times where police have to stay with that person until the point they’re actually assessed and that does take them off the road,” he said.

“So they are effectively ramped at a hospital for that period of time.”

The admission comes as new analysis of ramping data revealed Queensland was worse than Victoria and NSW during the recent December quarter despite having a smaller population.

In NSW just 16.8 per cent of patients were ramped, while 33.9 per cent were in Victoria.

But in Queensland, 38 per cent of arrivals weren’t transferred from paramedics within the prescribed 30 minutes.

Opposition Leader David Crisafulli slammed the revelation, claiming that if the state government didn’t “start listening” to the “cries for help from our health heroes” than it was “only going to get worse.”

Mr Brewer said busy paramedics weren’t always able to attend mental health call-outs.

“Sometimes the Queensland ambulance service will be tied up, there are no units available, and so the police are there having to make a choice about how we actually intervene in that situation,” he said.

Police outside Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital in Herston. Picture: Sarah Marshall

He said officers could sometimes de-escalate a situation, find family support for the person, accompany a family member to transport a person to hospital, or provide transport in a police car.

“So often police, if they’re required to do a transport, will often remain with that person at the hospital or healthcare setting because there might not be an availability of security, or there may be an overriding public health need to remain with that particular person,” he said.

“Sometimes police are forced, at times, to wait outside the hospital, even in a police vehicle with a person until such time when an available space is made to go in there for that person to be assessed.”

Mr Brewer said co-responders – made up of paramedic and police teams – were rostered for peak times at night and weekends but there were times “where we lose control” because “the need for services exceeds what’s available at that point in time”.

Originally published as Queensland police sitting ramped for hours as mental health system cracks