SA doctors fight record flu season

Doctors are calling for more South Australians to get flu shots after the state recorded its worst influenza season on record.

SA Health Minister Jack Snelling says the 2014 flu season was even more severe than the swine flu outbreak in 2009.

There were 11,042 cases of the flu in SA during 2014, surpassing the previous record of 10,776 in 2009.

The flu season peaked between August and September and affected all age groups.

Mr Snelling said its severity had placed unprecedented demand on hospitals.

The government came under attack in 2014 after several incidents of ramping - the prolonged queuing of ambulances outside hospitals - at the Royal Adelaide Hospital.

Flinders Medical Centre's Emergency Department director Alan O'Connor said the surge in flu cases showed that South Australians needed to get vaccinated.

"The more people who are vaccinated, the less chance the illness spreads throughout the rest of the community," he said.

"Also, if you are vaccinated and you do catch the flu, the vaccine lessens the severity of the illness."

SA Health distributed a record 370,472 flu shots in 2014.