The Australian Medical Association has launched a new hospital logjam campaign, urging voters to use an online tool to check how their local public hospital is performing.
The AMA's searchable tool — expanded to cover 352 hospitals across Australia — highlights the grim state of Australia's public hospital performance and intensifies the need for a new National Health Reform Agreement (NHRA) to address the logjam.
It reveals no metropolitan hospitals received a green light* for all categories measured by the AMA. Sixty-seven hospitals received five or more red lights and only nine with no red lights — a significant deterioration from 2020–21, when 54 had five or more red lights and 26 had no red lights. This shows that many more Australians are waiting too long for care in emergency departments, and too long for planned surgeries.
Ahead of this year's federal election, the AMA has released costed proposals outlining the amount of investment required by all levels of government to lift our public hospitals out of logjam.
AMA President Dr Danielle McMullen said years of chronic underfunding had led to ambulance ramping, overflowing emergency departments and long waits for essential surgery.
"This is a crisis that was developing long before the Covid-19 pandemic, and the inaction from several consecutive governments at all levels is hitting hard — and it's the patients who suffer the most," Dr McMullen said.
"Public hospitals are the great equaliser in Australian society — no matter how much or how little money you have, whether you live in Sydney, Broome, Cairns or Ceduna — we all turn to our public hospitals in an emergency.
"We all need our public hospitals to perform, but as our hospital logjam finder shows, the system is struggling from coast to coast."
The AMA is calling for immediate action to lift hospital capacity to "catch up" to underlying demand. Over the next four years, the AMA estimates an additional $12.5 billion of federal funding is required, as well as an additional $15.3 billion in state and territory government funding under a new NHRA.
"We welcomed Labor's uplift in hospital funding for one extra year in the latest budget, but the failure of all governments to agree on a new NHRA was disappointing," Dr McMullen said.
"The party that wins the election in May must expedite the finalisation of a new NHRA, because that is the key to lifting us out of this crisis.
"Our Clear the Hospital Logjam campaign highlights the chronic and systemic issues with how public hospitals are funded in Australia, and it urges voters to tell their local candidates that action is needed urgently."
South Australian hospitals are under the most pressure, with six major hospitals having six or more red lights.
Tasmania has all four public hospitals with five or more red lights, while WA has five hospitals with six or more red lights.
NSW has six of 71 hospitals with six or more red lights. However, 23 had five red lights, indicating the state hospital system overall remains under pressure.
Victoria has four hospitals with six or more red lights and 11 out of 28 hospitals scored five or more red lights, indicating signs of systemic pressure.
Of Queensland's 26 hospitals reporting on all categories, two major hospitals had six or more red lights.
Four of NT's hospitals have six or more red lights, with both Darwin hospitals receiving three red lights for elective surgery. The ACT's two hospitals received five and six red lights.
*The AMA's hospital logjam finder uses a traffic light system to indicate the percentage of patients that received care within the clinically recommended time. If 95 per cent of patients or greater received care within the clinically recommended time, a green smiley face appears. An amber grimace indicates between 85 and 94 per cent of patients received care on time, or their performance was unknown. A red sad face means less than 84 per cent or fewer of patients received care within the clinically recommended time. Smaller community hospitals or those that don't provide performance reports of activity about all services have been excluded from counts of poor performers.
