Queensland must invest in beds

On Monday we questioned the reason for Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s petulant demand that Scott Morrison provide a “big injection of funds from the federal government into the states to make sure the hospitals are able to cope with the growth (in Covid-19 cases) that will happen” or she would keep the border shut to NSW and Victoria. Now we know at least some of the answer.

Despite low rates of Covid-19, Queensland hospitals have turned away patients under dozens of capacity-driven “code yellow” declarations in the past month. A code yellow is the warning signal when hospitals start to run out of beds and ambulances are forced to divert to other emergency departments. Contrary to chief health officer Jeannette Young’s assurances on Sunday, the state’s senior doctors say they believe the system will not cope with a surge in Covid-19 cases when the nation begins to open up.

Australian Medical Association Queensland president Chris Perry said paramedics had begun leaving patients on stretchers in hospital hallways so they could get ambulances back on the road. The big problem, lack of beds, is inexcusable. Queensland, like all states, has had almost two years to prepare for an escalation in Covid cases. Its caseload remains a fraction of that of NSW and Victoria. The problem extends beyond the pandemic. Half of category two patients suffering imminently life-threatening injuries were not seen within clinically recommended times at seven public hospitals in the June quarter in Brisbane and across the state’s southeast.

For a government that has always been willing to spend, especially on health, which is a state responsibility, the predicament beggars belief. The Palaszczuk government had responded to the pandemic “with an unprecedented investment in health”, Treasurer Cameron Dick said in his budget speech in June. It “recognises the importance of better hospitals in giving Queenslanders the confidence that they will be cared for should they need it”. If so, the system must gear up before a serious outbreak of the Delta variant erupts. All governments face intense financial pressure. That is why it is important to reopen state and international borders as soon as it is safe, to regrow the economy.