The Labor-Greens Government continues to fail Canberrans when it comes to emergency department waiting times, falling significantly short of national targets.

Shadow Minister for Health, Giulia Jones, said it is unacceptable that median wait times for patients requiring urgent treatment blew out to 75 minutes at the Canberra Hospital between October and December last year.

“The national benchmark for treating urgent patients is 30 minutes. The Canberra Hospital is operating at more than double this time,” said Mrs Jones.

“Now, the Health Minister has admitted the next ACT Health quarterly report will ‘only be worse’ and they will ‘test a new set of national targets’.

“This latest admission is at odds with her previous commitment in January to fix the waiting times ‘within nine months’.

“The Labor-Greens Government have not been able to meet current national standards and are now looking to shift the goal posts with a trial of new standards.

“The Health Minister needs to tell the community what these new targets will be and how they will improve the waiting times in our emergency departments.

“This government, that has been in power for 20 years, is either not capable of fixing problems within our health system or simply doesn’t care,” Mrs Jones concluded.