Shock Queensland Health ramping data show half of patients left waiting in February
New Queensland Health data has revealed more than half of patients brought to three of Queensland’s largest hospitals by ambulance were forced to ramp in February.
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More than half of the patients who were brought to three of Queensland’s largest hospitals by ambulance were forced to ramp with paramedics in February, shocking new data has revealed.
And analysis by the Opposition has revealed 40 per cent of patients across the state weren’t transferred off-stretcher within 30 minutes during the same month.
The State Government convened an urgent meeting with stakeholders last month amid revelations paramedics were spending thousands of hours waiting with patients at hospitals.
New Queensland Health data for February has revealed 53 per cent of patients were ramped at the Logan Hospital while 51 per cent were ramped at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital.
At both Redcliffe Hospital and the Sunshine Coast University Hospital, 50 per cent were transferred off-stretcher within the recommended 30 minutes.
The Opposition has seized on the figures, with Leader David Crisafulli today claiming ambulance ramping was back in Queensland.
“The government spends a lot of time blaming everybody else for its failures but this is a real issue and it means something to real people,” he said.
“When you see figures across the state in some places, more than one in two people will wait an unacceptable level of time on a ramp at a hospital.”
But Health Minister Yvette D’Ath hit back, claiming the Opposition was trying to score political points.
“Our hospitals are doing their utmost best in dealing with surges we’ve seen in recent capacity for a whole range of reasons, but also dealing with our vaccinations and our testing and our COVID patients,” she said.
She said she wasn’t aware of any code yellows today.
“They (hospitals) know how to work through those and share that information across the various hospitals to make sure that we can deal with those loads,” she said.
The Courier-Mail last month revealed ambulances spent up to 185 hours ramped in one day at four hospitals across the state.
And paramedics waited almost 10,000 hours with patients outside overloaded hospitals in February.
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Originally published as Shock Queensland Health ramping data show half of patients left waiting in February
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