‘Left to rot on the ramp’: Ambos blast new SA ramping record
Ambulances spent a new record of more than 5500 hours ramped outside Adelaide hospitals in July, with the ambulance union challenging the Malinauskas Government over the “unacceptably dangerous” situation.
The state government today released ramping figures showing that ambulances spent 5539 hours in July waiting outside hospitals to admit patients – a figure equivalent to 230 days or around seven and a half months.
The previous record was 4773 hours in May 2024.
The July ramping figures are also substantially worse than June when 3798 hours were lost on the ramp.
The Malinauskas Government’s main platform for the 2022 state election was to “fix the ramping crisis” and it has since committed more than $7 billion to the health system.
The Ambulance Employees Association spent $400,000 supporting Labor’s 2022 campaign stance and undertook a high-profile campaign against the Marshall Liberal Government.
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“5550 hours of ramping must be a moment for the Government to stop and reassess all actions they are taking to fix ramping,” she said in a statement.
The union said the number was equivalent to 15 ambulance crews ramped every day.
“Our members are working their whole 12-hour shifts on the ramp,” it said, quoting one member who it said was in tears when she said: “We’re left to rot on the ramp.”
“Even critically unwell patients cannot get into Hospitals. On many occasions this month, and again this very morning, Priority 2 patients who should be seen within 10 minutes, are ramped for 2-3 hours at Flinders Medical Centre,” the union said.
“This is unacceptably dangerous.
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“Community ambulance response times are deteriorating as a direct result of ramping. We are again hearing from members of multiple life-threating conditions left waiting uncovered in the community whilst crews are ramped.
“This puts patients in the community at significant risk.”
Health Minister Chris Picton said there was “incredible pressure” on the state’s hospitals in July.
Each day, 130 additional patients were being admitted into hospitals compared to last year, Picton said, with an additional 1300 triple zero calls recorded.
Picton also said there continued to be problems with discharging aged care patients from hospitals beds.
There are currently 273 people in Adelaide metropolitan hospitals “medically ready for discharge” that are still waiting for an aged care bed, according to the state government.
“That’s huge demand on our hospital system, and it’s had a requisite flow on effect because the back door of helping these other patients get out has been stuck,” he said.
“So while the state government is giving with one hand these additional beds that we’re opening, they’re being deprived and taken away by the federal aged care system, which is a huge problem that needs to be tackled.
“If we continue to see these problems in the federal aged care system, that will be very difficult for us to meet that demand even as we are adding hundreds of extra beds and billions dollars of extra state funding.”
The ramping figures come despite a system-wide “code yellow” being in place across metropolitan hospitals since May 31, which included a temporary halt on some non-urgent elective surgeries.
“Despite those restrictions, despite all the measures that we’ve had to take to address this huge demand and the huge ramping situation that we’re trying to combat, we’ve actually seen an increase in elective surgery compared to the same time last year,” Picton said.
SA Health announced today that the code yellow declaration will end on August 16.
