A 74-bed shortfall at Sunshine Coast University Hospital is putting the hospital and patients under pressure.
Information revealed in Parliament show the Sunshine Coast’s major hospital was due to have 74 more beds operational by now, but they haven’t been staffed.
This bed shortfall is hurting patients, making life hard for health staff and impacting upon the ambulance ramping which is at dire levels. This has to be fixed so patients can be seen in time and the beds opened.
The information was revealed in an answer to a question I asked in Parliament. Queensland Health stated that the Sunshine Coast University Hospital (SCUH) will have 738 operational beds by 2021.
We are nearly at the end of 2021 and SCUH has only has 664 available beds, making the hospital 74 beds short.
To boast about commissioned bed capacity is a broken promise. If a bed is not staffed and appropriately funded, it is not operational. Years before COVID-19, the promised plan was to increase bed capacity at this hospital to 738 beds by the middle of 2021.
It is little wonder that ramping at SCUH is at 52%, up 19.5% compared to 13 months earlier and has the fourth worst ramping levels in the state.
This a Queensland Health scandal and needs to be addressed immediately. The Queensland Labor Government is losing control of health.
