QUEENSLAND Health data from the end of last year has revealed that almost a quarter of patients who arrived at Redland Hospital for emergency care were not seen within the clinically recommended time.
It comes as the opposition launches an attack on the government, saying ramping issues have exposed the shocking state of Queensland's public health system.
Oodgeroo MP Mark Robinson said the statistics raised questions about why standards were slipping and what the state government was doing to address the problem.
Data collected over the last quarter of 2020 revealed 24.3 per cent of patients who arrived at Redland Hospital's emergency department were not seen within clinically recommended times.
But the hospital slightly outperformed the Metro South network, which failed to get 28.9 per cent of patients into an emergency room on time between October and December last year.
All Redland patients listed under triage category one, which are those considered to be in an immediately life threatening situation, were seen within the recommended timeframe.
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Patients who fall under category one should be seen by a doctor or nurse within two minutes, while those listed as category five - and considered the least urgent - should be seen within two hours of arrival.
The hospital's median waiting time was 13 minutes, but 32 per cent of patients spent more than half an hour ramping before being transferred into emergency during January.
Mr Robinson said he had heard of 18 ambulances ramping simultaneously outside Redland Hospital recently, the greatest backlog he was aware of during his time in government.
Health minister Yvette D'Ath told Parliament that elective surgery and the battle against COVID-19 had put pressure on the health system and emergency rooms.
She said hospitals were dealing with the greatest number of COVID positive patients since the pandemic started.
There were 67 people with the disease in the state's hospitals as of Wednesday, but none were being treated at Redland.
"We have made record investment to deal with elective surgeries," Ms D'Ath said.
"This is creating a bed capacity issue. By having to fast-track all of those elective surgeries, consequently we have people taking up beds.
"This then causes problems through the emergency department."
Queensland Health announced in February that $25 million would be spent to increase bed capacity across the state's hospital system.
Ms D'Ath urged people to seek help from their GP if they had an issue that did not require emergency attention, as there had been a increase in category five patients arriving at hospitals.
"We are looking at categories one and two," she said. "We are seeing category one (patients) within the recommended time better than Victoria and New South Wales.
"We are seeing those people who are most urgent. That means that from time to time other people will have to wait."
Queensland's population grew by 68,200, or 1.3 per cent, in the year to September 2020. It was the greatest increase of all Australian states and territories.
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