Try ramping for a change

Perhaps today would be a good time to make the switch to concentrating during question time on hospitals as I suggested earlier this week. On most days there is a perfect demonstration of how the public system is not coping adequately and today is no exception. Over in Perth the St John Ambulance has reported that ambulances spent almost 2000 hours ramped outside Perth’s public hospitals over winter because emergency departments were too busy to deal with the extra patients. The West Australian reported that ramping is the term for when ambulances are queued outside emergency departments over and above the usual turnaround time to transfer patients. Instead of going on to the next call-out, ambulance officers are forced to continue caring for patients until they can hand them over to hospital staff.

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