In a striking illustration of the scale of the crisis, summit material depicted The Queen Elizabeth, Modbury and Noarlunga hospitals stamped CLOSED - representing 698 hospital beds effectively unavailable to other desperate patients.
Retirement Living Council (RLC) Executive Director Daniel Gannon attended the aged care summit, where Premier Peter Malinauskas warned that without urgent Federal Government action, ambulance response times, elective surgery and emergency care would deteriorate.
"Imagine driving past The Queen Elizabeth, Modbury and Noarlunga hospitals and finding enormous 'CLOSED' signs across the entrances. That's what 700 unavailable beds looks like," Mr Gannon said.
"You can shut down a hospital without ever locking its doors. When hundreds of beds are occupied by patients who are medically ready to leave but have nowhere appropriate to go, the impact ripples through the entire health system and consequences could be deadly.
"An older South Australian waits in hospital for somewhere safe to go. An ambulance waits outside emergency. Then another South Australian waits for an ambulance that should already be on its way."
Data and modelling released at the summit, including by SA Health and the SA Ambulance Service, show the pressure is already building and will worsen without action:
- Emergency department presentations have risen 15.7 per cent between FY22 and FY26, from 627,942 to 726,257.
- Federal operational aged care beds in South Australia have fallen from 89.0 to 67.4 per 1000 people aged over 70 (at 30 June 2025), while that population has grown from 207,651 to 288,400.
- Just 8.9 per cent of hospital cases are linked to 54 per cent of ramping.
- Only 50 per cent of life-or-death Priority 1 ambulance call-outs would arrive within the eight-minute target.
- Just 40 per cent of Priority 2 ambulance call-outs would meet the 16-minute target, including emergencies involving falls, strokes and chest pain.
- Overdue Category 1 to 3 elective surgeries would increase by 27 per cent.
"When aged care beds aren't available, hospitals fill up. Ambulances get stuck on ramps. And when ambulances can't get back on the road, lives are put at risk," Mr Gannon said.
"This is South Australia's health system approaching DEFCON 1. And the frightening reality is this may be as good as it gets. Without urgent action, today's crisis becomes next winter's catastrophe."
Mr Gannon said the crisis extended well beyond hospital walls, with thousands of older Australians also waiting for essential care in their own homes.
"Last financial year, 6,436 older Australians died while waiting for approved home care funding. That's more than 17 people every day who never received the funding they were desperately waiting for," he said.
"We cannot keep treating these waiting lists as numbers on a spreadsheet. These are real people, real families and real consequences."
Mr Gannon said retirement living could help keep older Australians supported and independent earlier, reducing avoidable pressure on hospitals while recognising that retirement villages were not a replacement for residential aged care.
The 2025 PwC-RLC Retirement Census shows 73 per cent of retirement villages provide Support at Home services, while 45 per cent of operators are approved home care providers.
Almost 5,000 retirement village waitlist registrations were also recorded in South Australia, highlighting growing demand for age-appropriate housing with access to care and support.
"Retirement villages aren't aged care facilities, but they're places where care is being delivered, helping older Australians stay healthier, independent and in their own homes for longer," Mr Gannon said.
"RLC modelling shows that delaying entry into residential aged care by just two years could save the aged care system around $1 billion annually.
"That's a billion-dollar reason to invest in prevention, not just crisis management.
"South Australia cannot arrive at next winter, stare at the equivalent of three closed hospitals and say nobody saw it coming."
