If the many people who go to emergency departments with trivial and minor illness or injuries didn't,  there wouldn't be overcrowding.

So many turn up with a minor cut that could be treated at home, or a low grade temperature etc.

If children are involved go but adults should learn basic first aid and lose the entitlement attitude.

Most people forget that it is not the capacity  of the emergency departments or hospitals. It is the shortage of an adequate number of properly trained staff. This has been going on for many years as tertiary institutions are failing to train sufficient people. This for a number of reasons  they don't have enough staff, and places for local people. They are also more interested on having places for high fee paying students, both from overseas and on overseas campuses. The other is the way they are training people. They now train them to be managers rather than carers. When most training was done in hospitals, the emphasis was on caring, then those who show management aptitudes would do further study. THE PROBLEM IS NOT A HEALTH ISSUE  BUT AN EDUCATION ISSUE.

The problems are manifold and cannot be repaired individually. The main problem, as Up front lady has identified, is the use of ED's for trivial medical problems that a GP can sort out in very quick time. People are tending to use ED's instead of their GP because of the costs involved. The solution is to charge this group what they would have to pay at their local GP. The second area of concern is the lack of GP's in a lot of areas which may be causing an excess attendance at ED's. The incoming government has promised to fix that problem but they won't tell us how that will happen. The third problem is a lack of trained nurses and, again, the incoming government wont be helping with that as they have promised to staff aged care homes 24/7 with registered nursing staff. In NSW we are already 17000 nurses below what is needed so where the staff for aged care homes will come from is a mystery. Lastly there is a shortage of ambulance staff which is exacerbated by making them de facto ED's and forcing them to stay on the ED parking area. It must be pointed out that the commonwealth grants funding to the states each budget but, and most importantly, it is the individual states that administer those funds and make the choices as to where the spending goes.

So, we need to have state governments training more nurses and having them attend university may not be the answer. The old system of training on the job whilst being paid produced a very high standard of caring nurses and could be looked at in conjunction with university training. Doctors spend 4 years at university and a further 2 years as interns so asking them to go where there is a need rather than having them make a personal choice to work and live where they want must involve an incentive. Paying them to relocate, establish a practice could help or maybe make the first three years tax-free as an incentive. Charge any patient who attends at an ED with a complaint that could be handles by a GP with the normal fee. Having more nurses and less patients presenting at an ED should solve the ambulance shortage problem.