Sunshine Coast Health says it is focused on improving the flow of patients at local emergency departments, which appear to be under more strain than ever.
New data revealed 53,800 patients were seen from April to June, a 2 per cent increase from the same period last year.
Ramping at Sunshine Coast University Hospital was at 36 per cent while ramping at Nambour Hospital reached 38 per cent. Shadow Health Minister Ros Bates said they were alarming new figures, but local and state health officials said they are doing what they can to improve services.
“What more will it take for (Minister for Health) Shannon Fentiman to start listening to Sunshine Coast patients and hospital staff?” Ms Bates said via a press release. “As a registered nurse and former hospital administrator, I know how frustrating it is for patients and paramedics who are forced to spend hours at the end of an ambulance ramp before receiving treatment. “Patient care must always be the top priority.”
But the state government said all category one patients were seen within two minutes of arriving at Sunshine Coast hospitals and the median wait across all five triage categories was 16 minutes.
Sunshine Coast Health chief executive Peter Gillies said the service was trying to help more local patients as quickly as possible.
“We are focusing on improving the flow of patients through our busy emergency departments with a number of initiatives including interim care beds, optimisation of virtual care and an improvement to our transfer initiative nursing model,” he said.
“We have also introduced a number of rapid access services that are supporting known patients living with chronic conditions to manage their symptoms and reduce the need for admissions to hospital.
“I want to thank our dedicated Sunshine Coast Health clinicians and support teams for the work they do to provide high-quality person-centred care.”
While Sunshine Coast Health staff treated more patients than usual last quarter, they also treated 3116 elective surgery patients, 28 per cent more than the same period last year.
The Sunshine Coast Hospital and Health System was earlier this year placed by Queensland Health in the bottom level of the Performance and Accountability Framework for the fourth year running, but Mr Gillies said then that its performance had been affected by various circumstances.
Ms Bates criticised the government for a statewide increase in ramping.
“This is the worst ambulance ramping anywhere in Australia, any time in history, and in 2023 it has only become worse,” Ms Bates said.
“Queenslanders want to know when their grandparent has a heart attack, an ambulance will come; when their child has an asthma attack, an ambulance will come.
“Instead, ambulances are stuck on hospital ramps because emergency departments have no space.”
Ms Fentiman said more would be done to enhance services at emergency departments around Queensland, which treated many more patients than usual last quarter.
“While we have seen some improvements, we know there is much more work to do,” she said in a press release.
“Our emergency departments managed a record number of presentations, more than 10,500 than the same quarter last year, and our patient off stretcher times remained steady, at 55 per cent.
“Despite the rapid population growth we’re experiencing, and despite being the busiest in the country, our ambulance service is doing incredible work to look after their communities.”
Ms Fentiman also said there would be more transparency.
Queenslanders will have access to a new-look and easier-to-navigate Hospital Performance website, which will include information and data that enabled consumers to compare the performances of hospitals and health jurisdictions across the state.
Do you have an opinion to share? Submit a Letter to the Editor at Sunshine Coast News via news@sunshinecoastnews.com.au. You must include your name and suburb.
