Documents released under Right to Information reveal the Palaszczuk Labor Government’s patient dump and run policy used for the Commonwealth Games is now a disgraceful permanent practice.
Patients are transferred to hospital stretchers following a directive to ensure ambulances were not ramped at hospitals during the Commonwealth Games in April last year.
Days away from the 12-month anniversary of the Closing Ceremony and RTI documents show the rapid offload policy has remained firmly in place.
“Annastacia Palaszczuk’s dump and run hospital policy is an absolute disgrace and needs to stop immediately,” LNP Leader Deb Frecklington said.
“Labor’s priorities are all wrong – they’d rather change hospital names and fudge figures than fix the ambulance ramping crisis.
“Our hospitals are at breaking point, which is impacting on patient care.
“Annastacia Palaszczuk promised better local health services at the last election, but things have gone backwards.”
The practice introduced under Labor goes against Queensland Ambulance Service’s own policy and also contradicts clinical advice. No training has been provided to nurses on the policy.
LNP Shadow Health Minister Ros Bates said what was supposed to be a stopgap measure to get through the Commonwealth Games was now a permanent plan to fudge ambulance ramping figures.
“Patient care should always be the priority, not stopping bad media headlines,” Ms Bates said.
“As a nurse, it makes me angry to see sick and injured Queenslanders lined up on stretchers in hospital corridors.
“It’s obvious our hard-working nurses, doctors and paramedics need more help on the frontline.”
The statewide ambulance ramping rate for February 2019 was 27 per cent under the Palaszczuk Labor Government, compared to 15 per cent in February 2015 under the LNP.
