As the State Government says waiting times at hospitals are the best ever, the Opposition says Logan Hospital has the worst ambulance ramping rate in Queensland.
In a statement last week, the State Government pointed to figures which seemed to show the health system in good shape, “despite the Covid-19 pandemic”.
But LNP candidate for Springwood Kirrily Boulton said statistics for Logan Hospital showed 35.5 per cent of patients waited on ambulance stretchers for longer than clinically recommended in June.
“That was the worst ambulance ramping rate in Queensland, equal with the Redcliffe Hospital, and is higher than the statistics at the last state election,” Ms Boulton said.
The State Government had their eye on different figures.
Elective surgery waiting lists had dropped from 7000 to 2774 by the end of June, a statement from Health Minister Steven Miles said.
Mr Miles said the drop in numbers was due to a $250 million “blitz” on elective surgery, and pointed to the hard work of healthcare workers.
He also pointed to statewide figures which showed that median wait times were 10 minutes at Queensland emergency departments for the April to June quarter, down from 15 minutes the same time last year.
Ms Boulton said it was “seriously out of touch” to claim “these statistics are great”.
“Despite their promise of better local health services, Labor delivered record ambulance ramping rates and an 86 per cent increase in surgery waiting times,” she said.
“Our local nurses, doctors, paramedics and midwives work incredibly hard. They need more help on the frontline to improve patient care.”
The Health Minister’s statement said the most urgent surgeries, Category One, continued unaffected during the pandemic and Queensland hospitals had delivered 1,723 lifesaving surgeries during this time.
“The coronavirus pandemic was a shock to our hospital system – especially when it came to non-urgent elective surgery outpatient activity,” Mr Miles said.
“But thankfully our pandemic response and our $250 million investment means we’re in a better position than many other states to tackle the Covid-19 surgery backlog.
“It is incredible to think that while many hospitals around the world are struggling to cope, our fantastic health staff managed to improve performance across most measures. We have ramped up surgeries now – using more theatres and operating during weekends to try to catch up as quickly as possible.”
Mr Miles said several health services and major hospitals across the state reported significant and sustained COVID-19 activity throughout the early months of the pandemic.
“From February to August, Queensland managed over 1089 COVID-19 cases. Across the state we’ve established 66 dedicated testing facilities, in addition to many private pathology providers and Commonwealth clinics,” he said.
“We’ve carried out over tested almost 705,000 tests. We’ve got a small army of almost 2500 public health unit staff spread across the state and further experts in Brisbane. Some of these experts are doing the hard yards of contact tracing cases as they come in.
“More than 82,000 Queenslanders have been issued a self-quarantine notice and more than 2100 people are currently in government provided hotel quarantine.”
