DAVID Koch, the co-host of Australia's most popular TV breakfast show, has not only promised to back The Cairns Post's campaign for a new hospital, he's demanding answers.

"We were stunned when we were showed that photo in The Cairns Post with all the ambulances parked out front," the popular Sunrise personality said from Sydney yesterday, referring to Monday’s ambo gridlock outside the Cairns Base Hospital emergency department.

"I'm going to show it to the Health Minister (Nicola Roxon) when she comes on the show tomorrow morning (today) and I'm going to say ‘10 ambulances, it's a disgrace, it's un-Australian, what are you going to do about it?’."

The decision by Seven's high-rating show to back The Cairns Post in trying to deliver better health services for the community is not surprising given its links to the Far North.

The program's creator, executive producer Adam Boland, worked as a journalist here with Channel 10 in the early 1990s when signs of the Cairns hospital’s struggles to cope with its growing population demands were already starting to show.

Mr Koch - known to his morning viewers as "Kochie" - said highlighting The Cairns Post'' campaign would only give more weight to Sunrise'' own Hospital SOS campaign to bring attention to the Australia-wide crisis in the hospital system.

"Four years ago, we had (former federal health minister) Tony Abbott and all the health ministers on a forum on the show and we thought they came to some sort of agreement," he said.

"But now with Kevin Rudd announcing a new (hospital) inquiry we thought ‘come on!’. No more words, we don't want another taskforce, we want action."

He said the most urgent action was to bring hospital bed numbers in Australia to the same 85 per cent average occupancy level of other industrialised countries, which meant an extra 5200 beds must be provided across the country at an estimated cost of about $1.3 billion.

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