State's peak medical body says that at the Cairns Base Hospital, about 80 beds were immediately needed for decreasing occupancy rates.

The Your Hospital’s Health website that was launched by he Australian Medical Association of Queensland yesterday as part of its campaign to improve the state’s health system stated the above.

Bed occupancy rates, waiting times at 27 Queensland public hospitals and elective surgery lists and emergency department is shown by the website.

Cairns was listed as one of the five Queensland hospitals with bed occupancy above 100 per cent by the association.

According to AMA Queensland president Mason Stevenson any hospital that has occupancy rates greater than 85 per cent is risky for patients as it increases mortality and disability rates.

He added, "It has been singled out by The (Australasian) College for Emergency Medicine as the single most preventable cause of adverse patient events in our hospitals. It’s at full capacity almost all of the time. It limits the availability of beds for elective surgical patients. We need to act to correct this scenario."

He added that to reduce the hospitals capacity to 85 per cent, about 79 beds were immediately needed.