A Shorten Labor Government will invest $100 million to upgrade and expand emergency departments and slash ED waiting times in Queensland.

Thirty-two per cent of people who present to EDs in Queensland are not seen within clinically recommended times.

For urgent patients, that number rises to 40 per cent.

That will only get worse if Scott Morrison is re-elected on 18 May because he plans to cut $651 million from our public hospitals over the next six years.

This is equivalent to:

• 161 beds a year for six years.
• 446 doctors a year for six years.
• 915 nurses a year for six years.
• 977,500 ED visits.
• 1.6 million outpatient visits.
• 181,000 cataract extractions.
• 25,000 knee replacements.

Under Labor, Queensland hospitals will be an estimated $800 million better off.

That’s the combined total of Queensland’s share of our Better Hospitals Fund – which reverses the Liberal cuts of the next six years – our new investment in driving down ED waiting times, and our separate investment in cancer patient waiting times.

Labor has already committed more than $300 million for hospital capital projects in Queensland including: 

• Wynnum-Manly Child and Youth Health Centre and imaging facility $29.2m.
• Rockhampton Hospital cardiac theatre $11.1 million.
• Specialist Care Centre in Moreton Bay $30 million.
• Emerald Hospital ED refurbishment $10 million.
• Mater Hospital acquisition $15 million.
• Blackwater Multi-Purpose Health Service $17.9 million.
• Logan Hospital Urgent and Specialist Care Centre $33.4 million.
• Bundaberg community mental health centre $15.7 million.
• Bribie Island Urgent Care Centre $17 million.
• Caboolture Hospital chemo service $10 million.
• QEII Jubilee Hospital Ambulatory Care Centre $23.7 million.
• Redcliffe Hospital paediatric ED redesign $10 million.

 
In Queensland, a Shorten Labor Government will also link 11 hospitals to our National Telestroke Network, provide a new Camp Quality Liaison Officer, 16 specialist cancer nurses, five new

Red Cross Milk Banks and three additional Medicare MRI licences.

Queensland will also benefit from other elements of Labor’s $2.3 billion Medicare Cancer Plan, as well as our $2.4 billion Pensioner Dental Plan.