30 July 2021
A five-year snapshot of Queensland’s public health system highlights the achievements of hospitals and staff in managing significant increases in emergency department presentations and surgeries.
Queensland Health Director General Dr John Wakefield said several factors, including population growth, aging population, falling private health insurance rates, and more recently, the global pandemic, were responsible for the high demand on health services.
“COVID-19 has had a severe impact on our hospitals in the past 18 months,” Dr Wakefield said.
“Whilst we have been successful in minimising community transmission of COVID-19, it was necessary to divert significant staffing into our public health response, testing, tracking and tracing, hotel quarantine, and mass vaccination”.
“There has also been a continued surge in demand for public health services over the past five years, including an extraordinary rise in emergency department presentations and referrals to specialist outpatient services”.
“We are also performing more surgeries as the state’s rate of chronic illnesses like obesity, diabetes and heart disease goes up. A growing number of Queenslanders are also ditching their private health insurance and turning to the public health system for treatment.
“We also have a high number of patients spending long periods of time in hospitals while they wait for aged care or disability packages, leading to significant impact on availability of hospital beds. Importantly, hospital is not an appropriate alternative to home or a residential care for the most vulnerable in our society who deserve better.
“While we have significantly increased funding and hired more staff to support both our pandemic response and the everyday delivery of healthcare, it’s no secret the pressure placed on our facilities has been immense.
“In spite of the constant pressure of dealing with unstoppable demand growth, our staff work 24/7 and do an amazing job in providing world class healthcare to all Queenslanders, no matter where they live.
“I commend and celebrate our hard-working staff and the health services for these achievements.”
Between 2015-16 and 2020-21, Queensland public hospitals reported:
- 38 per cent increase in emergency department presentations (from more than 1,728,980 to more than 2,380,690)
- 26 per cent increase in surgeries performed (from more than 168,480 to more than 211,850)
- 69 per cent increase in outpatient appointments (from more than 3,403,400 to more than 5,745,770)
- Continued delivering more than 50,000 babies each year.
In the same period, Queensland Health’s annual operating budget had increased from $14.18 billion to more than $20.2 billion (a 42 per cent increase).
The total workforce has grown from 75,924 to 91,206 people (a 20 per cent increase), including 8,606 to 10,744 doctors, 28,605 to 34,999 nurses, and 1,528 to 2,031 midwives.
Quarterly performance data for Queenslan’s Hospital and Health Services has been released today, available on the website here.