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Ambulance ramping outside Adelaide's major public hospitals jumped last month with the state government looking to improve patient flows through emergency departments to help ease the crisis.
The latest figures showed almost 4000 hours were lost to ramping in March, up from just over 3000 hours in both January and February.
Opposition health spokeswoman Ashton Hurn said South Australians had endured the worst 11 months of ramping on record.
"Those 11 record months are the equivalent of well over four years' worth of paramedics' and patients' time lost on the ramp, which is simply appalling," she said.
In response, the state government said it was rolling out a range of rapid actions to improve the flow of patients through emergency departments.
That included weekly audits of long-stay patients, more discharges earlier in the day, increased use of diversion care services, the placement of general medicine teams in emergency departments and increasing use of private hospitals for private patients
The government said the latest figures showed that hospitals were under unprecedented pressure, especially as people found it more difficult to access GP services.
It said the latest figures revealed a 20 per cent increase in hospital presentations for the least serious cases, which could have been treated in GP clinics.
"The crumbling of bulk billing and primary health care is putting unprecedented pressure on our hospitals and we need to do all we can to improve patient flow and capacity while we build additional capacity," Health Minister Chris Picton said.
"When people can't get a GP, they become sicker and are ending up in our hospitals for longer, with more complex health issues."
Mr Picton said the government remained resolute in the need to fix the ramping crisis with an extra 150 hospital beds to come on stream by the end of next year.
