Qld ER waits hit 70 hours as AMA warns system near breaking point

Some Queensland patients are reportedly spending up to 70 hours — nearly three full days — waiting in hospital emergency departments, prompting an on-air challenge to the state government from 4BC Brisbane broadcaster Jason Matthews.

Matthews used his morning program to press Queensland Health and Health Minister Tim Nicolls for a detailed monthly account of what is being done to ease the pressure, arguing that acknowledging the strain is no longer enough. "Telling us the system is under pressure is not a solution," he said, calling for clear figures on new doctors, nurses and beds, and a timeline for fixing the bottleneck.

Queensland Health has pointed to rising demand, noting emergency presentations climbed again in August, while also highlighting improvement in ambulance ramping, which fell to 35.5 percent in the June quarter, the lowest level in six years. But Matthews argued that broader context does not explain why waits continue to blow out, especially given the state's known population growth and workforce shortages.

A major driver of the congestion, Matthews said, is the more than 1,400 Queenslanders who are medically cleared to leave hospital but remain in beds because aged care or disability support placements are not available. Every one of those beds, he said, is unavailable to patients arriving through emergency.

Dr Maria Bolton, immediate past president of AMA Queensland, joined the program to back the concerns, describing the situation as "catastrophic" for both patients and staff. She said some emergency departments are now operating at two to three times their intended capacity, far beyond the 90 percent benchmark recommended by an AMA ramping taskforce in 2021, with patients routinely cared for in corridors, shared bays and parked ambulances.

Bolton, a doctor of 25 years, said the strain was taking a toll on staff morale, with unrostered employees regularly coming in to help colleagues cope with patient backlogs. She warned that prolonged waits were especially dangerous for patients who are delirious, confused or living with mental illness, and that reports of harm linked to extended waiting times were increasing.

She also raised concerns that clinicians had been told growth funding was cut in June, even as the government cited a 4.3 percent rise in presentations as a key pressure point, calling for clarity on how funding decisions were being made against rising demand.

Both Matthews and Bolton were careful to direct criticism at the system and its management rather than frontline workers, with Matthews praising emergency staff as "the ones holding the system together" despite what he described as significant stress, anxiety and abuse on the job.

Matthews said Queenslanders deserved regular, transparent updates rather than political blame-shifting, and called on the minister to commit to monthly public reporting on bed capacity, staffing recruitment and progress on moving long-stay patients into appropriate aged care and disability placements.