Dr Clare Skinner, head of the Australian College of Emergency Medicine, said there is clear evidence the country's entire health system needs an overhaul.

NSW residents will soon be able to compare hospital emergency department waiting times and book specialist appointments using a phone app as health authorities urge people to visit emergency only when necessary.

‘This is heartbreaking for the patients and their loved ones and this is also heartbreaking for clinicians who train for years because they want to help people.’

Australasian College of Emergency Medicine president Dr Clare Skinner said doctors at the coalface of struggling hospital system were desperate for “an integrated funding mechanism that stops the cost and blame shifting”.

The pandemic has merely worsened an underfunded system where key health workers are leaving in droves

Doctors at some of Sydney’s biggest hospitals say emergency departments are so overcrowded that patients are being treated in corridors and ambulance trolleys, as the number of ambulances on the city’s roads at night has fallen below minimum levels most days this year.

Nurses, paramedics and doctors are reporting that Australia's hospital conditions are worse now than they were at the peak of the COVID pandemic.

At every federal election health is usually a top concern among voters, yet in this campaign it's barely raised a ripple. Both major parties have made modest spending announcements, including making medicines cheaper, but it's notable that off the back of two years of health being front and centre during the pandemic, it's all but borderline invisible.

At every federal election health is usually a top concern among voters yet in this campaign it's barely made a ripple. Both major parties have made modest spending announcements including making medicines cheaper but it's notable that off the back of two years of health being front and centre during the pandemic, it's all but borderline invisible.

Doctors are warning of crisis as emergency rooms struggle to keep up with overwhelming demand for urgent medical care. Dr Clare Skinner says there needs to be a structural health reform.

People in need of urgent medical care are waiting hours for critical treatment, as the country's hospitals struggle to keep up with overwhelming demand. The situation has been labelled a "national emergency" by the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine and there are calls for the Federal Government to step in.

Experts say hiring more paramedics and creating new beds isn’t a silver bullet to fixing deeper issue in our health systems

The Bureau of Health Information has released a survey of 20,000 patients and their experiences in emergency departments during 2020-21.

Emergency department doctors are worried hospitals will be overwhelmed this winter, not just by covid cases, but also by flu patients and other people getting sick or injured as people mingle and travel more.

Every day in Victoria ambulances are ramped outside hospitals as seriously ill people are treated inside on stretchers in overcrowded emergency departments. Six health experts shared their view of what governments can do to fix the struggling healthcare system.

Health experts have welcomed Labor’s pledge to trial bulk-billed Medicare urgent care clinics, but warn they will not empty the nation’s crowded hospital emergency rooms.

We often think of Emergency Department workers as A-type personalities who like canyoning, skydiving and mountain climbing on the weekends, but having to constantly think on their feet in stressful situations makes many of them an inherently creative tribe too.

The Federal Budget represents so many missed opportunities to improve the health and wellbeing of Australians, and is likely to increase health inequities because of its focus on short-term ‘fixes’ rather than system reform, and its failure to address critical determinants of health, such as climate change, housing insecurity and poverty.

A damning report into increased hospital wait times has put the spotlight firmly on how NSW's health system is struggling to cope. It coincides with skyrocketing COVID case numbers - a trend experts fear will continue as the new variant spreads.

More than half of the sickest patients clogging some of Sydney’s major emergency departments are not being treated on time as critical staff shortages and patients’ complex medical needs intensify demand on NSW hospitals.