In short:

Health Minister Chris Picton is defending the South Australian government’s response to the heath crisis, saying hundreds of new beds are being built.

It comes as hours lost to ramping are now the highest in the state’s history.

What’s next?

The state government is planning to continue to open new beds across the system.

South Australian public hospital patients have spent a record 5,539 hours ramped in ambulances as the health system continues to struggle with demand.

“This is incredibly serious and is being dealt with incredibly seriously,” Health Minister Chris Picton said.

“At the moment, all of our beds are full.”

It comes as the code yellow — or internal emergency which led to the cancellation of elective surgeries — will cease across metropolitan hospitals on August 16 after it was announced in May.

Ambulance Employees Association general secretary Leah Watkins has slammed that move, saying the decision to stand down the code yellow needed to be reversed when ramping was at its worst.

She said more than 5,500 hours ramped was the equivalent of 15 ambulance crews unavailable every day.

Mr Picton said the record high ramping figures were due to failures of the previous government to future plan, winter illness and bed blockages in the federal aged care system.

State government figures showed there were an extra 130 patients each day presenting at public hospitals across the state compared to July 2023.

They also show that 273 patients have finished their hospital treatment, but don’t have an aged care placement yet so cannot be discharged.

“We saw an additional 999 ambulances going to our hospitals, about 1,300 additional triple-0 calls compared to the same time last year,” Mr Picton said.

“That’s huge demand on our hospital system and it has had requisite flow-on effect because of the backdoor of helping these other patients get out has been stuck.”

Mr Picton said his government was “giving with one hand” by providing additional beds, but they were being “taken away” by the “federal aged care system”.

“We are putting in more and more and more beds. We are building a bigger health system to meet this demand,” he said.

“If we continue to see these problems in the federal aged care system, it will be very difficult for us to meet that demand even as we are adding hundreds of beds.”

Opposition leader David Speirs has slammed the ramping figures. (ABC News: Carl Saville)

Opposition Leader David Speirs said he was not criticising the government’s commitment to open up new beds across the system but the lack of leadership.

“From Chris Picton and Peter Malinauskas to fix this diabolical problem, which is a problem made under their watch,” he said.

“They said they’d fix [ramping] and it’s four times worse.

“People are stuck on the ramp, they’re not getting the life-saving care in the emergency department.”

The state government has now fast-tracked work at the Hampstead Rehabilitation Centre to build 70 beds for older patients.

Mr Picton said by the end of next year, there will be an influx of new beds, which will be the “equivalent of a new Queen Elizabeth Hospital”.

Central Adelaide Local Health Network executive director Rachael Kay said more than 270 patients had finished their hospital care but had nowhere to go.

She welcomed the beds at Hampstead, saying it would allow patients to continue their treatment in a more suitable environment.

Posted , updated