Less than 65 per cent of urgent emergency department patients in Queensland are seen within the recommended 30 minutes, a new Australian Medical Association (AMA) report has found.
The association’s annual public hospital report card also found the state’s public hospitals failed to meet the National Emergency Access Target, with about 75 per cent of emergency department visits completed in four hours or less.
There was an improvement in elective surgery waiting times, but it still did not meet the national target.
AMA president Brian Owler said most state governments had made a concerted push to reduce hospital waiting times, but the “disappointing” report card showed they were struggling to cope with growing demand.
He said planned changes to the tax system should be used to boost public hospitals.
“What we want to see is any revenue that is raised is kept in health,” he said.
Queensland Nurses Union’s secretary Beth Mohle said she believed the Australian public “would be prepared to pay higher taxes to continue with the high quality health and education services that we have now”.
“That’s the debate we need to have as a whole community,” she said.
“We really do have to be fundamentally rethinking the way that we do health and investing far much more funding into primary and preventative health care which actually stops people from getting to the emergency departments and surgery.”