THE union representing Queensland's ambulance officers has backed claims that elderly patients may have died while waiting for attention in overcrowded Queensland public hospital emergency wards.

Australasian College for Emergency Medicine Queensland chairwoman Sylvia Andrew-Starkey today said there was evidence that disorientated elderly patients who had been taken to emergency wards and left in hospital corridors on trolleys might have fallen off them and died or suffered serious complications.

Jason Dutton, state organiser for the Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union (LHMU) said he knew of cases where people had died in hospital after being in ambulances which had been "ramping'', a term used for when patients have to wait in ambulances outside the hospital when there are no free beds.

"I certainly know they've died in the hospital, and sitting in the back of the (ambulance) car has contributed to that,'' Mr Dutton said today.

"There's numerous cases we can talk about where people have been revived from cardiac arrest who have had to wait outside the hospital for up to an hour before they can actually be seen in the hospital.''

He said he had no knowledge of patients dying in ambulances which had been "ramped'' outside emergency wards, but he said the situation would only get worse.

"The community of Queensland needs to realise this is not the ambulance drivers' fault, it's Queensland Health's fault.

"There's nothing the ambulance (service) can do.''

He said 250 new paramedics were employed last financial year and another 250 would be this year.

"That's fantastic, that's a great effort, but they're not going to be any good if we can't get them to the jobs, get them away from the hospitals.

"We provide a very professional standard of care, but obviously that's limited to what we're trained to do.

"These people need to go to the next level, that's why we have doctors and nurses, to extend the level of care.

"That's the other side of ramping. While it's uncomfortable and inconvenient for people sitting in the ambulance, it's absolutely risking their health and wellbeing by not receiving the level of care they deserve.''

Mr Dutton said it was stressful for ambulance officers, but particularly for communications staff.

"They're the ones receiving the triple-0 phone calls, and they're the ones who then have to make a decision where they're going to get an ambulance from.

"In some ways communications staff are the unsung heroes of this whole process.''

Cairns Base Hospital experienced "ramping'' up to "12, 14, 15 hours'', Mr Dutton said.

He said there had been slight improvement in Cairns, but "five, six, seven hours is not unheard of''.

Logan Hospital, south of Brisbane, was "very bad'' and the situation was becoming worse at Brisbane's hospitals.

From the ambulance officers' perspective, public hospitals in Toowoomba, Rockhampton, Hervey Bay, Bundaberg and Mackay were performing better, he said.

Source: The Australian - Steve Gray