Ambulance ramping reaches 'crisis levels' as union casts doubt on improvements before next election

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The Ambulance Union, which played an influential role backing Labor at the last state election, says it's losing confidence in the government's ability to fix the ramping crisis before South Australians head to the polls again. It follows reports an 83-year-old woman spent more than twelve hours ramped at the Royal Adelaide Hospital last night.

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00:00Ahead of the 2022 election, Labor and the Ambulance Union were united, campaigning to

00:07fix the ramping crisis by first changing the government.

00:13Labor said it would take time to reduce ramping and improve response times, but the union

00:18is now questioning if the government can deliver its promised fix before the next election.

00:24I'm less confident now than I was two years ago.

00:27I felt like two years ago, we had four years to come at this and for the election commitments

00:34to start having an impact.

00:35The continued crisis highlighted overnight with reports an elderly patient was ramped

00:40at the Royal Adelaide Hospital for more than 12 hours.

00:43That one case alone of an 83-year-old patient that waited 12 and a half hours, that is the

00:49longest I've ever heard of a patient being ramped for.

00:52The health minister raised his concerns about the performance of the city's hospitals overnight

00:56and says the system is under significant pressure.

00:59On any daily basis at the moment, we've got the equivalent of Modbury Hospital full of

01:04patients waiting for those federal aged care and NDIS places.

01:08The government maintains it's making investments to increase hospital capacity.

01:13The opposition says Labor's policies haven't worked.

01:16They said we'll fix ramping.

01:19The absolute opposite has occurred.

01:21But as the government comes under increasing pressure, so too is David Spears' position

01:25as Liberal leader.

01:27If someone wants to challenge me, come on and challenge me.

01:30I reckon I'd get more votes than I got when I got elected leader of this party in 2022.

01:36That's the kind of straight talking that we've had from day one from our leader.

01:40Pressed on if he would challenge his boss, Josh Teague refused to explicitly rule it

01:45out.

01:46What are you challenging?

01:47What I'm challenging is a challenge to the Premier to step in today and appoint a new

01:53stand-alone dedicated Child Protection Minister.

01:56The Liberal's later clarifying the shadow Attorney-General won't challenge.

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