4BC Drive has revealed the extent of the ambulance ramping crisis in Brisbane, with numerous cases of Queenslanders left waiting for hours.

In an email to 4BC Drive, a listener who did not want to be named, shared one story which left Scott Emerson in disbelief.

“A friend’s mother developed bleeding and stomach cramps this morning, and the daughter rang for an ambulance,” the email read.

“It took 3 hours until 1pm to get an ambulance to her, because of a backlog.

“She has now been in the ambulance since 1pm and at 3.26pm is still in the queue at Prince Charles Hospital at Chermside, there is a queue of 17 ambulances in front of her ambulance.”

Metro North Health, which runs the hospital, denied there were 17 ambulances waiting but said it has been “busy”.

In a statement, Queensland Ambulance Service apologised for the delay.

“The system is experiencing an extremely busy day today,” the statement read.

“From an ambulance perspective we apologise if the service provided to this individual isn’t what they expect but the sickest people in the community must have priority.”

Caller Lynne called an ambulance from Victoria Point on Friday night after she was advised by her doctor to go straight to hospital with high blood pressure.

“I rang at 5.40pm and I got an ambulance at 11.30pm.”

She said it was “horrible” waiting, and she had no one to take her to hospital.

Scott Emerson said it was a disgrace.

“This hospital ramping is completely out of control. Someone will die. This has to be fixed.”

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Caller Dave, which is not his real name, identified himself as a paramedic and said the government had failed to plan for the demand on services.

“I have been an ambo for a very long time, and I can’t recall hospital ramping and the backload on ambulance calls being this bad. It’s simply not a question of if someone is going to die, somebody is.”

Shadow Health Minister Ros Bates said it wasn’t good enough and the health workers needed the resources to do the job.

“The poor old paramedics are doing the best they can, but their job is to make sure they can get a patient to hospital as safely as quickly as they can possibly do it, and then hand over to the ED staff for any intervention.

“My heart bleeds for the ambos, they are trying to get out there and do the best job.”

Press PLAY to hear her views on 4BC Drive

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