A Message from the Premier to Queensland's Health Workers

Hi, everyone in Queensland Health and QAS.

I just wanted to deliver a message as we've reached a really important milestone, and I wanted to thank you for your service.

In the last year and a half, the additional staff working in Queensland Health has increased by
10,000.

There's two reasons for that.

One has been a genuinely really healthy pipeline of people coming in to the service, but also an improving attrition rate.

And I wanted to thank all of the staff who have been there for the long term, as well as those who have joined you, for your service and what you're doing.

And as we look at the results, improving ambulance ramping, improving elective surgery wait lists, the improvements to the 24-hour waits in EDs, I just wanted to say thanks very much.

There's no doubt you're making a difference, and I just wanted to express my gratitude for that.

We're also building the health system of tomorrow, and whilst a lot's been made of the new hospitals on the Gold Coast, in Toowoomba, and in Bundy, there's a number of other services that are being upgraded that will make a big difference.

Gladstone Hospital's new Women and Family Center has officially opened, and that means Central Queensland families can get the access to maternity and pediatric care closer to home.

In Townsville, construction's begun on the expansion of the Eastern Campus car park.

That's going to deliver 300 new spaces, and it'll enable construction on the multi-story carpark.

Ultimately, that's going to have over 1,000 new car parking spaces for what is a major hospital for the north of the state.

In Western Queensland, we've seen new staff accommodation at Longreach, at Winton, and Charleville, and that's a big play in trying to attract and retain staff who serve our communities in regional areas.

We've opened the new state-of-the-art Queensland Ambulance Service, which is the Southeast Operations Center on the Gold Coast.

That manages hundreds of thousands of triple zero calls each year, and I do want to thank everybody who does the hard yards in that center.

We've reached an exciting milestone in Brisbane with the topping out of the Princess Alexandra Hospital expansion, and that means the project is now expected to be delivered a year earlier than anticipated, and we need that.

We need to get people on the ground.

I acknowledge there's a long way to go, and these resources are one small part of what we need to do to deliver a health system right across the state.

But to every one of you who have worked in it, whether it's been you're a new recruit or you've been there for many decades, I just want to say I'm really deeply grateful for your work and just know that you're making a difference.