A new report tells us hospital emergency rooms had 2.25 million visits by people aged 65+ in 2023-24, up 16% in 5 years compared to just a 4% increase among younger people.
We have discussed before in this newsletter that the baby boomers are increasingly swamping the hospital and medical system. There are 75% more baby boomers than the previous generation.
Australasian College of Emergency Medicine’s president Dr Peter Allely said it was terrifying: “We’re only at the beginning of the exponential curve. We are not prepared for this.”
“Our entire healthcare system is geared towards acute care of younger patients, and we need to collectively shift that to being able to provide safe, effective and compassionate care to older Australians.,”
More than 53,500 older people spent longer than 24 hours in an ED waiting for an inpatient bed on a ward in 2023-24, an approximately 250% rise from the 15,084 in 2018-19.
“When you’ve got a 97-year-old sitting in a plastic chair overnight waiting for care, we’re failing, and it’s downright embarrassing that this is happening every day,” Allely said.
ACEM Victoria branch chair Associate Professor Mark Putland said: “Our health system is at a tipping point. We can expect things to get much worse in the coming years unless we act.”
The report found that older people, not surprisingly, arrive at the ER requiring hospital admission. In fact older people are twice as likely to be admitted than younger patients.
The challenge is that, along with aged care beds, there are virtually no new hospital beds being added to the system. Between 2019 and 2024 just 14 new hospital beds were added to the supply in NSW.
The federal government acknowledges that around 12,000 new aged care beds are required every year for the next 20 years to support baby boomers.
Yet in 2025 just 800 new beds were delivered.
Prevention the only answer
Common sense says setting yourself up not to require an emergency visit to a hospital is the only action we can take as individuals.
Every reader is aware that falls are a common factor, even in our 50s, let alone our 70s and 80s. Falls are one of the greatest contributors to entry to hospitals.
In fact, falls account for 43% of all injury hospitalisations. Imagine that.
We can all invest in preventing falls and hospitalisation at Monday Club. Our strength programs, combined with flexibility, balance and mobility, will go a long way to save you from a fall.
In addition, these programs will obviously do wonders for your heart, your circulation, your brain, and your quality of life.
The message is: be a positive statistic feeling strong and feeling good, not a negative statistic, with your life taken up by multiple doctors’ visits and ultimately a hospitalisation.
