Patients aged 65+ left waiting over 24 hours in Australian emergency departments surge 254pc
MELBOURNE, Oct 13 — Emergency departments at Australian hospitals are unprepared for the country’s ageing po...
Emergency departments in Australian hospitals are struggling to cope with the aging population, according to a report released by the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine (ACEM). In 2023-24, nearly nine million people sought care at emergency departments across the country, with a quarter of them aged 65 and above. Half of this age group arrived at hospitals via ambulance, while 70% required urgent care and 50% were admitted to a hospital bed.
Compared to younger patients, older patients faced significantly longer wait times, with 53,510 individuals spending over 24 hours in emergency departments awaiting a hospital bed, a 254% increase from 15,084 in 2018-19. Only 54% of older patients needing admission left the emergency department within the eight-hour target. The ACEM warns that the health system and its workforce are ill-prepared for this demographic change, calling for urgent action from federal, state, and territory governments to address these issues.
The report also projects that emergency department arrivals among those aged 85 and over will surge by 411% by 2050.
Written by urgent.news from Malay Mail's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
