SA ambulance ramping set to record 50,000 hours in 2025 despite Peter Malinauskas’s pledge to fix it

Peter Malinauskas’s election pledge to fix ambulance ramping is now a distant memory with the state on track to record 50,000 hours this year. In 2021, it was 28,152 hours.

Ambulance ramping is on track to bust the 50,000 hours mark in 2025 despite Labor’s persuasive 2022 election pitch to “fix” ramping – as influenza cases suddenly soar.

It means ambulances will have spent a combined total of almost six years over the course of 2025 stuck in hospital car park queues waiting to offload patients to chronically clogged hospital emergency departments.

The grim milestone looms as influenza figures show an alarming surge, with numbers rocketing in the past seven weeks from 447 in the week ending October 25 to 823 in the week ending December 6.

So far this year SA has had almost 34,000 flu cases compared to 22,537 at the same time last year.

SA Health says the flu usually occurs “between May and September” and has been asked what reasons are the causing the unseasonal summer surge which is putting new pressure on the health system at a time when respiratory woes usually ease.

The November figures show ambulances spent 3422 hours ramped to bring the year total to date to 48,466 hours.

December’s figure will not be released until about a week into the New Year but is on track to set an unwanted record of more than 50,000 hours – almost double the last year of the former Liberal government.

In 2021, the last full year of the former Marshall government, it was 28,152 hours.

Monthly ramping figures since 2017

The good news is the November figure was the fourth consecutive monthly fall.

However, it was still higher than the 2711 hours figure recorded in March 2022 when the election was held amid political and union outrage over ramping personified by Ash the Ambo, paramedics daubing their ambulances with protest signs and Labor hammering the then-Liberal government over ramping.

Ambulances were daubed with protests prior to the 2022 state election.

Labor has since poured billions of dollars into the health system, opened new ambulance stations, a new headquarters, put on more paramedics, nurses, doctors and opened hundreds more hospital beds – but ramping remains rampant.

Australian Medical Association SA president Associate Professor Peter Subramaniam said all sides of politics must invest in innovative reforms.

“We acknowledge the recent improvement to ramping figures since the record monthly high in July, but the significant problems causing ramping have not been addressed,” he said.

“We must not lose sight of the patients. Each hour wasted on the ramp this year represents someone’s mother, someone’s grandfather, someone’s child who received delayed access to emergency care at a time when they were in pain, discomfort or distress.

“Ahead of the election we’re calling on all sides of politics to listen to the doctors on the frontline of care and commit to the recommendations AMA SA has begun announcing ahead of the election.”

Originally published as SA ambulance ramping set to record 50,000 hours in 2025 despite Peter Malinauskas’s pledge to fix it