Women in their 70s trapped in six-hour ramping ordeal at Ipswich Hospital
The State Government has been grilled over the state of hospital emergency departments after two women in their 70s were forced to wait in ambulances for six hours. And it wasn’t an isolated incident.
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Two women aged in their 70s had to wait up to six hours with paramedics outside Ipswich Hospital on Tuesday in the latest shocking examples of the state’s ongoing ambulance ramping crisis.
The State Government was grilled again on Wednesday about under-pressure emergency departments across the state, with the Opposition demanding they “act”.
The Courier-Mail can reveal a 78-year-old woman waited six hours with paramedics at the Ipswich Hospital on Tuesday while a 72-year-old woman was ramped for more than five hours.
A 52-year-old woman waited almost five hours.
The three patients were not in critical conditions.
Opposition Leader David Crisafulli said the government needed to work on finding solutions like making data on resource availability accessible in real time so patients and health professionals could make choices quicker.
He also called for “better resourcing” for triaging in emergency departments and investment in “more resourced beds”.
During Question Time yesterday, the Opposition claimed there were staff shortages on the Gold Coast while demanding to know what the scope was for a review into ramping which Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk on Monday flagged she would consider.
But the Premier repeated she was happy to speak to Health Minister Yvette D’Ath about any potential review while referring to the meeting between hospital and health services, unions and consumer groups that will be held today (Thursday).
Ms D’Ath, who will meet with those stakeholders today, said they would be the best people to work with on what else the government could do to take pressure off emergency departments and bed capacity.
The Minister slammed the Opposition, saying they had set aside $77 million for consultants and advertising to talk about what they would do if they were re-elected.
“We are getting on with addressing the issue,” she said.
“We are meeting with those key people … and I look forward to listening to their contributions on what else we can be doing.”
Mr Crisafulli said ambulance ramping was back in Queensland.
“The State Government is losing control of healthcare meaning Queenslanders are losing access to vital services,” he said.
“We must work towards finding solutions.”
The Courier-Mail yesterday revealed ambulances spent up to 185 hours ramped at Ipswich, Sunshine Coast University, Cairns and Gold Coast University hospitals on March 21.
It followed revelations paramedics waited almost 10,000 hours with patients they’d transported to hospital before they were admitted in February.
Originally published as Women in their 70s trapped in six-hour ramping ordeal at Ipswich Hospital
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