Queensland's Ambulance Ramping Crisis: Paramedics Reveal Extent of Problem

Frontline paramedics in Queensland have revealed the extent of the state's ambulance ramping crisis, with many spending entire 12-hour shifts with patients stuck outside overcrowded public hospital emergency departments.

The paramedics are unable to respond to "lights and sirens" cases in the community, as they are forced to wait for extended periods with patients who cannot be offloaded into hospital emergency departments. This comes as an investigation is underway into the case of a 51-year-old man who died at home after calling Triple Zero (000) and waiting for an ambulance.

Ramping Crisis Deepens

According to the latest data for August, 42 per cent of ambulance patients wait more than 30 minutes before they can be transferred off stretcher into the care of the emergency department — a practice known as ramping. This is only slightly better than the 43.9 per cent figure in the August before the current government was elected.

A deep dive into the new ambulance ramping data shows some key public hospitals are faring significantly worse. They include Cairns, Mackay, Gladstone, Caboolture, Toowoomba, The Prince Charles Hospital, and the Sunshine Coast University Hospital.

Worst Hit Hospitals

The worst hospitals in the state are in the Metro South region, where at Logan, Redland and the QEII hospitals, more than 60 per cent of patients arriving by ambulance were ramped for more than half an hour in August. QEII had the highest Queensland ramping rates for the month at 64.8 per cent.

United Workers Union state secretary Fiona Scalon said Metro South hospitals had been ambulance ramping "hot spots" in recent months. "Ramping is entirely a symptom of a hospital system that's not working well," Ms Scalon said.

"For our members, who are paramedics in the field, it's kind of demoralising for them to be sitting at a hospital with the care of a patient when they should be out in the community dealing with people in need who haven't been assessed yet."

Paramedics' Frustrations

A Metro South-based paramedic, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said he sometimes worked entire shifts of 10 or 12 hours where he would spend his working day ramped with one patient at a hospital. "That does occur not too infrequently," he said.

"You'll hear the workload in the community is very high. It just means we know there's people out there who genuinely need an ambulance critically and they are not receiving that care. That's one of the biggest frustrations."

On the day he was spoken to, he was ramped with a patient at Logan Hospital, south of Brisbane, for five hours. He also said there were instances where Code 1 "lights and sirens response" cases waited two or three hours in the community before paramedics could get to them.

"The system is overwhelmed and not coping properly," the paramedic said.

Government Response

Health Minister Tim Nicholls said he was hopeful that the state would be able to get ambulance ramping below 30 per cent by October 2028, despite record numbers of people attending Queensland emergency departments, an aging population, and soaring levels of chronic disease.

"I'm hopeful that we'll get there and it's not blind hope," he said. "It's much higher than we'd like. There's more work to be done but the trend is showing that we are having an impact."

Mr Nicholls also said the Federal Government needed to do its part, given 1,400 patients in Queensland public hospitals were waiting for an aged care placement or National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) support.

"If we got just 200 of those beds back, we would see the ramping numbers improve dramatically, because we would have beds in the hospital to move people out of the emergency department," he said.

Call for More Hospital Beds

Toowoomba-based emergency physician Justin Thompson said staff burnout was on the rise alongside overcrowded emergency departments and "increasing levels of occupational violence" in hospitals.

"The main thing that we need going forward from the state is increasing our acute hospital bed capacity," Dr Thompson said.