Ambulances queued outside Mount Gambier Hospital 'not ramping', SA premier says
South Australia's salaried doctors and paramedics unions say reports of potential "ramping" and staff shortages at the Mount Gambier Hospital need to be taken seriously.
In the past week, photos of up to seven ambulances waiting outside the hospital, in the state's largest regional city, have been posted to social media.
The photos ranged in time from 2024 to as recently as Wednesday and Thursday of last week.
When asked about the images, SA Premier Peter Malinauskas told ABC South East SA his advice from the Limestone Coast Local Health Network was that the incidents were not ramping.
He said patients were waiting for treatment on stretchers inside the hospital building and not in the back of ambulances.
"Ramping is when someone arrives at a hospital in the back of an ambulance and then isn't able to get out of the ambulance into the hospital in the appropriate time frame."
The premier added some of the ambulances in the images were transferring patients between health facilities and were not undertaking an emergency response.
"But that's the advice that I've received and I've got no reason to discount it."
Mr Malinauskas campaigned heavily on addressing the state's ramping crisis in the lead-up to Labor's 2022 state election win.
Ambulance Employees Association SA general secretary Paul Ekkelboom said the premier was arguing semantics over an exact definition of ramping.
"Either way, it ties up the ambulance and it makes it unavailable to respond to the community.
"Our members have had multiple reports that both forms occur, whether that be internal or external."
Mr Malinauskas denied differentiating between patients waiting inside or outside the emergency department was arguing the semantics of ramping.
Prior to the 2022 election, Labor MPs raised concerns in state parliament about "internal ramping", including in 2019 by Member for Wright Blair Boyer regarding the Lyell McEwen Hospital in Adelaide.
In 2021, Light MP Tony Piccolo talked about the prospect of "internal ramping" at the Gawler Health Service.
Mr Ekkelboom said ambulances not being able to leave the hospital was "genuinely scary".
"The last thing we [want to] see, and it's happened before, is that there's no ambulances to respond to people in the community," he said.
"You take a cardiac arrest — seconds means the difference between potentially life-sustaining treatment.
"If we have ambulances ramped for an hour, we can't respond to anyone."
The South Australian Salaried Medical Officers Association (SASMOA) completed a site inspection of Mount Gambier Hospital's emergency department in February and told ABC News ramping was "common" and raised concerns about staffing levels.
Speaking in response to Mr Malinauskas's comments, chief industrial officer Bernadette Mulholland said staffing remained an issue.
"What we are looking for is medical workforce reviews of the ED there and the other clear request from members is more senior staffing in that ED to be able to assist with the patient presentations."
Construction on a $24 million upgrade to the Mount Gambier Hospital is ongoing, which will increase the number of beds and expand the emergency department.
It will also include upgrades to a dedicated mental health unit.
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