MEDIA RELEASE
The AEA is profoundly concerned to learn that the number of hours lost to ramping in July 2025 was a mammoth 5,866 – the worst on record in South Australia. Ramping hours is a record we didn’t want to see broken, but this is the unfortunate reality of a health system at crisis point.
The State Government made a commitment to the people of South Australia that it would fix the ramping crisis. This commitment was a key part of its election platform that saw it elected into Government in 2022.
But the stats don’t lie. It’s been over three years, and the ramping crisis is far from fixed – in fact, it is only getting worse. In July 2022, four months after the Government came into power, 3,647 hours were lost to ramping. In July 2025, this figure had jumped to an alarming 5,866 hours. This is more than a 60% increase in three years.
In July, ambulances sat on ramps across metropolitan Adelaide for almost 200 hours every day. Some ambulance clinicians are spending their entire 12-hour shift on the ramp with a single patient awaiting admission to hospital. While ambulance crews are ramped they are unable to respond, and there is a very real and increasing risk that members of our community will have no one to help them in their time of need.
Priority 2 and 3 response times, which are some of the most urgent and at-risk patients, continue to sit well below the targets put in place to ensure patient safety. When every second matters in an emergency, it is simply unacceptable to have our ambulance clinicians ramped and unable to respond.
We are also receiving increasing reports of sickness, fatigue and burnout amongst our members, who are trying their best to meet the needs of the community in a failing health system.
The AEA calls on the State Government to protect the community and deliver on their promise to fix the ramping crisis.
Quotes Attributable to AEA General Secretary, Paul Ekkelboom
When every second matters in a medical emergency, it is simply unacceptable to have our ambulance clinicians ramped for hours on end, unable to respond to the community.
This Government was elected to fix the ramping crisis and so far they are failing. If something doesn’t change, we will continue to see increases in ambulance ramping and even longer delays in ambulance response times, which we know puts community safety at risk.
When so much time is spent ramped, our ambos are unable to take restorative breaks during fatigue-inducing work. They deserve so much better than what the Government, which committed to fixing the ramping crisis, is currently delivering for them and their patients.
Authorised by AEA General Secretary Paul Ekkelboom