“No one wants to see the sort of lines that we saw outside our hospitals,with the ambulances and the delays that were incurred,” the health minister said.

“Obviously,at ramps,they were waiting much longer.”

The state also recorded an additional 400 code one calls,the highest emergency coding for paramedics,while the response time was about 8.9 minutes.

The average number of code one calls is about 1150 calls a day.

“It is starting to come down today ... but I am glad that the pre-approved call system in Telstra came off just after 10pm last night,” D’Ath said.

“We are starting to see an easing of some of those pressures,but it was certainly an extraordinary time.”

The pressures on the state’s health system were exacerbated by a surge in the number of COVID-19 cases needing to be admitted to hospital.

On Tuesday,there were 572 COVID-19 patients in hospital,even before the anticipated influx caused by influenza and other winter illnesses.

D’Ath said an additional 120 recruits for the QAS would be rostered on before winter.

Australian Medical Association Queensland’s Dr Bav Manoharan has called for the federal government to increase its share of health funding,and funding overall.

“There are issues around Medicare and so the Medicare rebates for our GPs and other specialists in the community – that hasn’t gone up for decades,” he said.

“So those are federal issues and we need to make sure that’s clear – they’re issues the Commonwealth has to work on.”

D’Ath said if there was an “affordable and accessible GP in every single town in Queensland it would fundamentally change the pressure on our public health system”.