Ambulance ramping Tasmania: ‘Updated’ data shows state gov’t undersold scale of crisis

Two documents tabled in parliament by the state government have given wildly divergent versions of Tasmania’s ambulance ramping woes, with statistics differing by hundreds of percentage points.

Ramping at Launceston General Hospital at 3.06pm, January 21, 2023. Picture: LGH Community Support

The state government has been accused of bandying faulty figures on Tasmania’s ambulance ramping crisis, with two documents presented to parliament three months apart giving wildly divergent accounts of how long patients were waiting to be admitted to emergency departments.

Earlier this year, Premier Jeremy Rockliff was asked by Liberal defector John Tucker, in his capacity as chairman of parliament’s Estimates Committee A, to provide figures on ramping wait times at the state’s four major public hospitals for FY 2021–22.

According to Mr Rockliff’s response, 50 per cent of emergency department admissions to Launceston General Hospital were ramped longer than 58 minutes, with the corresponding figure for Royal Hobart Hospital 28 minutes. Less than half of admissions at Mersey Community Hospital and North West Regional Hospital were ramped for notable periods of time, on this account.

However, when the same FY 2021–22 figures were again tabled in parliament on September 28 – just a few months after the original data was provided – they had suddenly climbed steeply.

Ambulance ramping figures tabled in the Tasmanian Parliament three months apart have given wildly divergent figures on the scale of the issue. Picture: Supplied

According to the updated figures, 50 per cent of LGH emergency department admissions were ramped for longer than 84 minutes, not 58 minutes as claimed – a divergence of almost 45 per cent – while the corresponding figures for Mersey, RHH and NWRH also varied by wide amounts.

The updated figures said 50 per cent of RHH admissions were ramped for longer than 74 minutes, not 28 minutes – a 164 per cent increase.

Follow @humidityreport

Across all hospitals, ambulances were ramped for an average of approximately 50 minutes, as at April this year.

“The delays are even worse than what was outlined to the Tasmanian public,” said Labor’s health spokeswoman Anita Dow.

Labor health spokeswoman Anita Dow outside the Launceston General Hospital, October 24, 2023. Picture: Alex Treacy

“Information provided during estimates should actually be accurate. We’re concerned about the new data and what that has meant for patients.”

In a statement, Health Minister Guy Barnett failed to explain how the original figures provided to the committee proved so faulty, merely saying they had been “updated”.

Mr Barnett said the state government continued to implement policies to reduce what it calls “transfer of care delays”.

“We have deployed community paramedics, secondary triage clinicians and mental health emergency response teams to provide more care in the community, which is reducing the need to transfer patients to hospitals.,” he said.

Mr Barnett also said a chronic lack of general practitioners whose books were open was a significant contributing factor to bed block, as patients with no alternative turned to hospital emergency departments. He noted this was a federal responsibility.

Originally published as Ambulance ramping Tasmania: ‘Updated’ data shows state gov’t undersold scale of crisis