Latest news with #ambulanceRamping
ABC News
4 days ago
- Health
- ABC News
SA ambulance ramping surges to third-highest level on record as government 'falls desperately short' of its promise
South Australian patients spent 4,791 hours ramped in ambulances outside public hospitals in May — more than one thousand hours higher than the previous month — as the health system continues to struggle despite billions in extra funding. Two days after releasing a state budget with $1.9 billion in additional money for health, the state government on Saturday published data revealing May was the third-worst month for ambulance ramping in SA since records began in July 2017. The amount of time ambulances spent waiting outside public hospitals to discharge patients increased from 3,700 hours in April to 4,791 in May. The result is roughly in line with the 4,773 hours recorded in May 2024, which preceded a winter surge that saw ramping reach record levels in June (5,539) and July (5,284) of that year. Health Minister Chris Picton said public hospitals were under "significant pressure" last month. "But we've got people stuck in hospital that don't need to be there because they're waiting for a federal aged-care bed." There are 243 elderly patients in SA's public hospitals awaiting an aged care bed, according to the state government. The Royal Adelaide Hospital recorded the biggest spike in ramping hours last month, jumping from 1,194 to 1,698 hours, while the Flinders Medical Centre also spiked from 1,021 to 1,318. Ambulance response times to call-outs also worsened slightly in May. The percentage of priority two call-outs met within the benchmark 16 minutes decreased from 67.7 per cent in April to 60 per cent in May. Priority one call-outs — triaged for a response within eight minutes — stayed the same, with 72.3 per cent of calls met on time. The Malinauskas government highlighted that the May 2025 response times are significantly improved on its early months in office — in May 2022, 54.9 per cent of priority one call-outs and 34.8 per cent of priority two call-outs were being met on time. The head of South Australia's paramedics union said today's ramping figures have given him "grave concerns" about the winter months ahead. Paul Ekkelboom, general secretary of the Ambulance Employees Association (AEA), said his members were also "very frustrated" with the situation. "I get messages every day from regional and metropolitan crews about the extended … hospital ramp times they're having," he said. Asked about the outlook for the next few months, Mr Ekkelboom said: "I've got some grave concerns, obviously." He said the current ramping levels were only around 700 to 800 hours below last year's record numbers and "we've not even hit winter". "If something's not done dramatically, then I think it's going to be even worse than what we saw last year, and that's detrimental to people in the community," he said. The Malinauskas government has invested an additional $9 billion in the state's health system since coming to office in March 2022, according to the state budget papers released on Thursday. Labor won the 2022 election with a core pledge to "fix the ramping crisis" through new spending on hospital beds, ambulances and staff. Opposition health spokesperson Ashton Hurn said the government was falling "desperately short" of its promise. "Labor are now three quarters of the way through their term in office and we're yet to see any green shoots when it comes to delivering on their number-one election promise which was to fix ramping," she said. "We really need to move away … from looking at the statistics here and actually remember what this means for people. "What this means is that sick South Australians are left stranded outside of our hospitals desperate to get in for the care that they need." But the Health Minister said the government was "throwing the kitchen sink" at the problem. "We are opening additional beds which has been called for for years and years and years. "We're putting extra into mental health which has been called for for years and years and years, we've hired an additional, above attrition 2,800 extra doctors, nurses, paramedics and allied health professionals. "But we've got a blockage at the other end of the system that is depriving us of that, so every bed that we're opening is pretty much being filled with an aged care resident that can't get into aged care." Thursday's state budget revealed that demand on public health services is estimated to have grown by more than 4.5 per cent in 2024-25, with the government stumping up $1.7 billion over five years just to cope with increasing demand. The state government says it is building and opening more than 330 new hospital beds across Adelaide in 2024 and 2025.
ABC News
03-06-2025
- Business
- ABC News
St John Ambulance WA records worst ambulance ramping figures for May
The Australian Medical Association has warned record levels of ambulance ramping could lead to increased deaths among patients waiting for emergency care, as Western Australia faces its worst flu season in at least three years. St John Ambulance data shows last month was the worst May on record for ambulance ramping, with patients spending 5,333 hours parked outside WA hospitals. Ramping occurs any time an ambulance spends more than 30 minutes waiting outside a hospital for their patient to be received. The previous record for May was 5,258 hours in 2022, at the tail-end of the COVID pandemic. During May last year, ambulances spent 4,837 hours ramped outside of hospitals. It comes as WA faces its worst flu season since at least 2022, which could put extra pressure on hospitals, with 6,983 influenza cases already reported to WA Health so far this year. Australian Medical Association WA president Michael Page said that was a concern for doctors. "We know that the longer a patient is waiting for emergency department care, the higher the chance of death," he said. "There's a lot of good international evidence about that and there's no reason to think things would be any different here." Dr Page attributed the issues to long-term pressures in the health system, most acutely a shortage of hospital beds and doctors and nurses. The main short-term solution, he said, was increasing WA's vaccination rates. Data from the Australian Immunisation Register shows Western Australia has the lowest flu vaccination rate of all states with only 19 per cent of sandgropers vaccinated this year. "That is a role for our new Preventative Health Minister, whose portfolio includes vaccination," Dr Page said. "So we would like to see strong action from government on researching the reasons that people are declining to be vaccinated and addressing those problems head on." The WA government has promised hundreds of millions of dollars to address ramping pressures, including expanding its Virtual Emergency Department program which aims to divert patients from EDs. Asked about the current level of ramping, Premier Roger Cook also pointed to election commitments to upgrade emergency departments at Royal Perth and Midland hospitals. "We continue to make sure that we grow hospital beds, and the staff that stand by them, so that's an important part of it," he said. "Ultimately we need better flow of patients, so that's one of the reasons we have our $100 million aged care support package. "And of course we want to make sure that we have a healthy population, which means that we need to continue to encourage the federal government to grow urgent care clinics and the opportunities to get primary care." Dr Page said while those measures would help, there was no avoiding the need to build more beds. "So building more ED beds might, in the short term, improve the EDs ability to see patients coming in through the front door, sure, but it doesn't solve the problem that patients are still waiting in our EDs for beds on the wards." Shadow Health Minister Libby Mettam said the issues showed the government had the wrong priorities and urged it to outline what its "surge plan" was to deal with increased demand. "The Cook Labor government need to outline that plan and outline how they will better support and incentivise our health workers to ensure we have the staff that we need, that there are reforms in place to better support our emergency departments," she said. "They need to make health a priority, they need to ensure that there is a surge plan ahead of winter and ensure that our emergency departments and our health services across the community have the support that they require to ensure lives will not be lost. Dr Page said he was unsure what a surge plan would look like. "Hospitals are routinely over 100 per cent capacity because the wards are full and there are patients waiting in corridors for proper ward beds," he said. "So where is surge capacity going to come from when you're running at over one hundred per cent capacity already?"
