Hospitals and emergency services around Logan are experiencing an influx of high priority patients, causing longer wait times for ambos and hospital care.
Last week, elderly couple Don and Mary Wardlaw waited more than two hours for an ambulance to show up to their home in Shailer Park, choosing to drive to Logan Hospital themselves.
“My wife was in a lot of pain, we found out she had a twisted bowel that needed urgent care,” Mr Wardlaw said.
“I made multiple phone calls to the service while we waited nearly three hours for someone to come out and they just kept saying ‘we’re too busy, someone is on the way’.
“I rang again at midnight and told them I would take her myself; it was ridiculous.”
Mr Wardlaw said Queensland Ambulance Service (QAS) needs to do something about their wait times.
“QAS needs to address this, I would have hated to have had a heart attack and no one show up,” he said.
“Even for them to just say we are experiencing a high demand of callouts, is it safe for you to make your way to the hospital, I would have gone a lot sooner and not waited around.”
“Mary had to have surgery, imagine if we waited even longer?”
After having a positive experience at the Logan Hospital, Mrs Wardlaw was transported to a private hospital for surgery, but again had to wait nearly two hours just to be seen.
According to Metro South Health, the healthcare system is overwhelmed with new patients.
“Across the Metro South region, we continue to experience an increasing number of people presenting to our emergency departments for treatment,” a Metro South Health spokesperson said.
“In the September 2022 quarter, the largest increases in hospital presentations were seen in the highest category patients (Category 1, 2 and 3), while less urgent Category 4 and 5 presentations decreased compared to the same quarter last year.
“This means a higher proportion of patients required the most urgent care for more serious conditions.”
The spokesperson said people presenting to the emergency departments for care will always be seen, however the sickest patients are always prioritised.
“This does mean people with less serious ailments will wait longer to be seen than someone who is seriously ill, regardless of whether they arrive by ambulance or via their own transport,” she said.
“In times of peak demand, we work collaboratively with the Queensland Ambulance Service to share the load across the Metro South region in an effort to manage wait times.”
Queensland Ambulance Service said Mr and Mrs Wardlaw’s incident was “triaged appropriately”.
“We triage our cases to ensure life threatening cases are responded to as a priority. This case was triaged appropriately using the information provided by the caller,” a spokesperson said.
“The patient was continually reviewed during their wait time by a supervisor paramedic and a specialist emergency physician employed by the QAS Clinical Hub, ensuring the patient remained safe while waiting.”
Mr and Mrs Wardlaw said they would like to thank Logan Hospital and its staff for their “excellent service.”
