Queensland police have been forced to ramp outside hospitals “for many hours” with mental health patients amid a spike in people threatening suicide.
A police officer told the Courier Mail that law enforcement are feeling hospital pressures as they respond to more than 140 calls a day from people threatening suicide.
Police attending calls of people threatening suicide has jumped 58 per cent in six years.
It follows after Queensland recorded its fourth highest number of triple-0 calls in a single day on Monday.
Domestic, Family Violence and Vulnerable Persons Command Acting Assistant Commissioner Peter Brewer said police were presenting to almost 1000 calls per week from people threatening suicide, parliament’s mental health select committee was told on Tuesday.
Mr Brewer said police are affected by “ramping issues” much like the ambulance service, with some officers forced to wait in their vehixjmtzywcles for “long periods of time” with people threatening suicide.
“Sometimes police are forced to wait outside the hospital, even in a police vehicle with a person [who is threatening suicide] until such time when an available space is made to go in there for that person to be assessed.
“So they are effectively ramped at a hospital for that period of time.”
The revelation follows new ramping data from December showing just 38 per cent of hospital arrivals weren’t handed over to hospital staff within the recommended 30 minutes.
Mr Brewer said if paramedics weren’t able to respond to mental health call-outs, then police would intervene.
“Sometimes the Queensland ambulance service will be tied up, there are no units available, and so the police are there having to make a choice about how we actually intervene in that situation,” he said.
Mental health support
