Reporter: Annie Guest

ELEANOR HALL: Doctors in Queensland are warning that their patients are dying because of the extreme shortage of hospital beds in the State.

In recent days, Brisbane's biggest hospitals have closed their doors to ambulances and the hospital in the major regional centre of Townsville has resorted to using conference rooms to accommodate patients.

But the State Government has defended its handling of the health system. In Brisbane, Annie Guest reports.

ANNIE GUEST: For more than a decade, Australians have been hearing about and experiencing overcrowded hospital emergency wards, bed shortages and closures. Now in Queensland doctors say the situation is the worst it has been in years, with lethal consequences.

SYLVIA ANDREW-STARKEY: We have had a couple of deaths that I know of that are attributable to waiting time.

ANNIE GUEST: Dr Sylvia Andrew-Starkey is the Queensland head of the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine. She says the situation is so bad right across the State that doctors are calling for a two week suspension of elective surgery.

SYLVIA ANDREW-STARKEY: It's a radical solution that's one of the things that we're considering and it needs to be a governmental, sort of whole of government approach.

ANNIE GUEST: In recent days and weeks, ambulances have been put "on bypass" as major Brisbane and regional hospitals close their doors. Some of those who are making it inside are pictured in the media, lying on trolleys lined up along corridors.

They're comparatively fortunate. Doctors are saddened that some elderly people have little choice but to sit in plastic chairs overnight, waiting for treatment. In the northern Queensland city of Townsville, administrators say they're opening up conference rooms to accommodate patients.

But the State's Minister for Health Stephen Robertson has defended the Government's handling of the hospital system and he's called for evidence that people are dying, waiting for treatment.

STEPHEN ROBERTSON: I would invite Dr Starkey to make any information that she has available to back up those statements available to me immediately.

ANNIE GUEST: So why has Queensland's hospital system seemingly lurched into a crisis? Stephen Robertson yesterday told Parliament there's no crisis and the system is coping. He blames a shortage of GPs and demographic factors for the problems, including an ageing and growing population.

STEPHEN ROBERTSON: We have thought about the infrastructure. That's why we've building a new 750-bed hospital on the Gold Coast, a 650-bed new hospital on the Sunshine Coast, a new children's hospital. That's why we've opened over 700 new hospital beds and employing more clinical staff, more doctors, nurses, allied health professionals than ever before.

ANNIE GUEST: But the Minister's explanation for Queensland's closed and overflowing emergency departments wasn't appreciated by callers to ABC Radio in Brisbane this morning.

CALLER 1: All he's done today is to confirm to you, me and every other listener that he is thoroughly incompetent.

CALLER 2: I was so annoyed to hear what he said. My wife was in intensive care at PA in early August and on the Saturday morning that she died, we were there and we commented on the number of empty beds and the fellow, the doctor in charge said to us then, those beds aren't used because we are not funded. We need them but we're not funded for them.

The day the ambulance took my wife, she had a massive heart attack, the day they took her in there were very many ambulances lined up at PA.

ANNIE GUEST: Peter from Noosa says the Government fails to reveal how many beds have been taken out of the system and how many doctors and nurses have left.

PETER: We constantly hear that the Government has appointed X number of doctors but they don't tell you how many have actually left and the same with the 750 new beds. You know, the shortage still exists with the 750 new beds. So what is the actual shortfall?

ANNIE GUEST: But not all the criticism on talkback radio was reserved for public hospitals and the State Government. One woman says private hospitals have also failed to plan.

CALLER 3: Her thigh really but she broke it yesterday morning, but there were no beds available in the private hospital. So they took her through to the Royal Brisbane where she is taking up a bed here that perhaps could be used for somebody who hasn't got insurance.

ANNIE GUEST: The timing of these problems is particularly unfortunate for the Queensland Government. It has recently been revealed that it may close the Aramac Hospital in Western Queensland and replace it with a clinic. So today on ABC Radio in Western Queensland, residents also vented their frustration.

CALLER 1: We do feel very disadvantaged. Everyone is very upset about it because, you know, they're just going to close Aramac down.

CALLER 4: It just feels like the Government has just driven another stake into us and pulled the rug out from underneath us.

CALLER 5: Just going to rip the guts out of a town like Aramac. If you lose 20 jobs out of a little town, the town doesn't recover and you lose more services so I feel terribly, terribly sorry for them.

ANNIE GUEST: The Health Minister says there's been no final decision made on health services in Aramac.

Back in North Queensland where the hospital problems appear to be the most acute, Queensland Health is investigating ways to move patients from Townsville Hospital to other facilities.

The Department's Director General arrived in Townsville late yesterday to meet with hospital administrators.

ELEANOR HALL: Annie Guest reporting.

Source: ABC Radio - The World Today