A NEW report from the Australian Medical Association (AMA) has revealed that ACT is the worst performing state or territory when it comes to hospital waiting and treatment times.

The latest public hospital report card shows fewer than 35 per cent of urgent patients at ACT emergency departments are seen within the recommended time frame of 30 minutes.

Just over half of all emergency department visit in the ACT are completed in four hours or less.

Australian Medical Association President, Dr Omar Khorshid, said that those seeking emergency treatment in the ACT had a one in three chance of being seen on time.

“If you are classed as urgent, which can include being severely ill, bleeding heavily from cuts, having a major fracture or severe hypertension you have a one in three chance of being seen within 30 minutes in the ACT,” Dr Khorshid said.

“And if you’re in an ED in Victoria, the ACT, Tasmania, South Australia, Northern Territory it’s more likely you’ll still be there after four hours than if you were in WA, NSW or QLD.”

Dr Khorshid said the report card shows that even during 2020 lockdowns, hospitals were still overwhelmed – with backsliding or barely improved peformance, even with dramatically reduced patient volumes.

“What’s remarkable about his year’s report car is it shows hospitals continued to struggle in 2020 when Australians stayed home, and we weren’t dealing with the highly contagious delta variant or high COVID-19 hospitalisations,” Dr Khorshid said.