Ambulances were forced to bypass North Canberra Hospital's emergency department on Tuesday due to bed capacity issues.
Canberra Health Services had to enact a "code yellow" at the Bruce hospital's emergency after many patients needed urgent care.
The bypass was activated at 1.30pm on Tuesday and was lifted around 5pm the same day.
There were 36 patients at the emergency department who were waiting to be admitted to the hospital when the bypass was activated.
"The code yellow was declared due to pressure on inpatient bed capacity and a simultaneous arrival of multiple acutely ill patients that drew heavily on the emergency department resources," a Canberra Health Services spokesman said.
A "code yellow" is part of Canberra Health Services' emergency management plan and "is activated when infrastructure and/or other internal emergencies affect service delivery standards both internal and external buildings".
A bypass is when ambulances are directed to another emergency department. All ambulances were directed to the Canberra Hospital during the bypass.
"We are one public health service and have a system wide approach to managing instances of capacity pressures across the entire service," the spokesman said.
The North Canberra Hospital was formerly known as Calvary Public Hospital Bruce but the running of the hospital was taken over by Canberra Health Services earlier this month.
Opposition health spokeswoman Leanne Castley said she wanted a briefing on the matter.
"I will be asking the Health Minister [Rachel Stephen-Smith] for an urgent briefing on this debacle to understand how this happened and what impacts the code yellow had on other hospital operations," Ms Castley said.
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