Under-resourced hospitals spark ambulance ramping crisis outside emergency departments

Healthcare workers say patients’ lives are at risk as ambulances are increasingly being ramped outside “under-resourced” NSW hospitals.

Ambulances are increasingly being stuck outside NSW emergency departments. Picture: Damian Shaw

Ambulances are increasingly being stuck outside NSW emergency departments, as healthcare workers say patients’ lives are being put at “serious risk” with hospitals too “under-resourced” to cope with the demand.

The Sunday Telegraph can reveal that hospitals in Sydney and regional areas including Albury, Hunter, Lismore are facing extreme hospital bed shortages, with patients waiting for hours in ambulances to receive care.

Health workers, including paramedics, say staff are suffering “burnout”, with hospitals urgently needing more beds to fix the crisis.

They say delays in offloading patients from an ambulance to an emergency department due to bed shortages, known as “ramping”, has reached “breaking point”.

Earlier this month on June 13, ambulance ramping outside Albury hospital was so dire that it’s claimed the region’s only intensive care vehicle was ramped for almost 10 hours.

In another incident, 11 ambulances were ramped on June 9 at Lismore Base Hospital as paramedics waited for their patients to be seen in the emergency department.

Ballina Greens MP Tamara Smith said there was “no ambulance cover” for 200km east to west from Ballina to Tenterfield, and 120km from Byron in the north to Iluka in the south.

Ms Smith said ramping had been a “constant issue” in Ballina for the past decade.

In the Hunter Region, paramedics say there have also been several ramping and bed block incidents, with some patients waiting for hours to receive care.

Ballina Greens MP Tamara Smith says ramping has been a constant issue in the region. Picture: Luke Marsden.

Meanwhile, a paramedic who works in Western Sydney, said Westmead Hospital’s emergency department and others in the region were “severely” under-resourced.

“Some patients can wait up to six hours or more to see a doctor and although some of these cases are not life-threatening, they still require adequate healthcare,” he said.

A current emergency department doctor, who has worked in both metro and regional hospitals, said the state government needed to better invest in healthcare.

“Patients’ lives are on the line and they are being put at serious risk because of long wait times,” the doctor said.

“This is the result of the government failing to address critical bed shortages and a lack of staff, especially in regional areas which are at breaking point.”

Australian Paramedics Association secretary Brendan McIlveen said there had been an increase in ramping in recent months across hospitals in both regional and metro areas.

“This is a systemic statewide issue,” he said.

Mr McIlveen, a paramedic for 13 years who works in Newcastle, said there was high stress and burnout among paramedics, particularly in regional areas.

“The government has invested in a rural scheme to deliver 500 paramedics but we still need more than that number to ensure that there are enough paramedics,” he said.

“There is a high burnout of paramedics because the workload is that high. There needs to be a major investment in ambulance services across the state and country.”

Towong Shire mayor Andrew Whitehead, whose dying father spent more than five hours in an ambulance waiting to get into Albury Hospital in March, said ramping was a “major” ongoing issue in the region.

Mr Whitehead said Albury Wodonga Hospital’s $558m revamp wouldn’t fix current ramping issues.

“The state government needs to halt current redevelopment plans and invest the money into building the hospital on a Greenfield site,” he said.

Paramedics say hospitals are too under-resourced to cope with the demand. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Kelly Barnes

Opposition Health spokeswoman Kellie Sloane said: “The current ambulance ramping crisis highlights the immense pressure on Albury Hospital and underscores the urgent need to get that redevelopment underway.”

NSW Health Minister Ryan Park said NSW was outperforming all Australian jurisdictions in terms of treating ED patients on time, while a NSW Health spokesman said: “Despite sustained high demand for emergency care, nearly three in four patients started treatment on time in NSW (74 per cent)”.

A NSW Ambulance spokeswoman said the safety of patients and paramedics “is our highest priority” and that the service had “systems in place to continue responding to patients when there are delays”.

The latest Bureau of Health Information (BHI) Quarterly Health Report, covering January to March 2025, showed Category 1 calls – the most life-threatening cases – met the 10-minute response time KPI almost 64 per cent of the time across the state.

In rural areas, that figure plummeted to just 50 per cent.

Originally published as Under-resourced hospitals spark ambulance ramping crisis outside emergency departments