Launceston General Hospital nurses at ‘breaking point’ over poor ED staffing levels
Emergency department staff at a major hospital are “at breaking point” due to understaffing, with a handful more nurses in the pipeline, but no business case for more. LATEST >>
Tasmania
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- Union says ambulance ramping continues at major hospitals
- Hobart man says three hour wait for ambulance was ‘harrowing’
EMERGENCY department staff at a major hospital are “at breaking point” due to understaffing, the state’s peak nursing union says.
ANMF Tasmania branch secretary Emily Shepherd said it was alarming that a business case created by the union and Tasmanian Health Service to increase staff at the Launceston General Hospital emergency department had been denied by the Department of Health.
“Even more alarmingly, no other strategies have been suggested to ameliorate concerns,” she said.
“The toll that the continued strain working in an over stretched and under resourced emergency department has on nursing staff and their colleagues is immeasurable.”
However, a departmental spokesman said no proposed solutions had been taken off the table.
“A business case for an additional eight FTE staff at the Launceston General Hospital emergency department has been approved, and a subsequent business case for a further staff increase remains under consideration,” he said.
“No business case has been rejected. The ANMF has been part of this process.”
Ms Shepherd said the untenable situation had gone on for too long, and if the state government did not show leadership they would seek help through the Tasmanian Industrial Commission.
Health Minister Sarah Courtney said the LGH is an outstanding hospital and acknowledged the extraordinary, hardworking staff working in the emergency department and the entire hospital.
“As a government we are committed to ensuring our health services have more of the resources they need, which is why we are continuing to take action and increase investment into the LGH, including continuing to progress the $87m redevelopment and boosting staff levels.
“The department will continue to engage constructively with staff and key stakeholders, including the ANMF, on developing solutions to longstanding patient flow and demand challenges.”
Royal Hobart Hospital ED “chock-a-block” with stranded ambulances
Blair Richards
March 2, 2021
PREMIER Peter Gutwein has defended the government’s resourcing of Ambulance Tasmania after being grilled over recent incidents of poor outcomes for triple-0 callers.
As revealed by the Sunday Tasmanian, the health union says a patient who died last week after calling an ambulance complaining of chest pain may have been saved if paramedics were not stuck ramped at the Royal Hobart Hospital.
The Health and Community Services Union also highlighted the recent case of a 70-year-old Brighton woman who fractured her pelvis and waited seven hours for an ambulance.
In state parliament on Tuesday, Labor raised another case of a person potentially put at risk due to ambulances being ramped and unavailable to attend emergencies.
Opposition Leader Rebecca White said there had been no ambulance available to attend a suspected cardiac arrest in Battery Point on Sunday night.
“It does not get any more urgent, yet an off-duty ambulance crew had to be called from Sorell, 25km away,” Ms White said.
“Premier, this very nearly was another tragedy on your watch. Do you find it acceptable that critically ill patients in an emergency, where minutes can make a difference between life and death, are asked to wait because of continued and unacceptable ambulance ramping?”
Mr Gutwein said the government took such incidents seriously, with potential patient safety incidents reviewed.
He said the state government had significantly increased investment in ambulance services.
“Ambulance Tasmania has now more than 170 full-time equivalent ambulance, paramedics and dispatch officers in place than we had in 2014,” he said.
On Tuesday afternoon there were at least nine ambulances parked outside the Royal Hobart Hospital’s emergency department.
HACSU state secretary Tim Jacobson said members reported the Hobart ED was “chock-a-block” with ambulance crews waiting to offload patients.
Mr Jacobson said the government had upped spending on Ambulance Tasmania, but it was too little too late.
“Let’s take the Premier and the minster for a walk down the ramp today and we will see how their investment is going,” he said.
“There has been significant under-investment in ambulance over the last 15 years.
“The scenes at the RHH and the LGH every day of the week just show the government has under-investment in our health services.”
Ambulance ramping ‘puts the community at risk’
February 28, 2021
By Cameron Whiteley
A PATIENT who died this week after calling an ambulance complaining of chest pain may have been saved if paramedics were not stuck ramped at the Royal Hobart Hospital, the union representing ambulance workers says.
The Health and Community Services Union said the patient’s death happened on Tuesday night, when they say Ambulance Tasmania were at least two crews short in the southern region and it was a bad night for ramping.
It comes after a 70-year-old Brighton woman last week fell and broke her pelvis in three places, and then waited almost seven hours for an ambulance to arrive, only to be told the crew that arrived had been ramped at the RHH.
HACSU said the patient from South Hobart reporting chest pain and shortness of breath called triple-0 about 9pm and was told they would get the next available ambulance.
A callback was initiated about 15 minutes later which the patient did not answer, and the union said it took about 17 minutes for a dispatch to be organised, including a demand that a crew be released from the hospital.
The crew arrived four minutes after leaving the ramp and let themselves in, discovering the patient unconscious and not breathing. The patient was found to have suffered a cardiac arrest and could not be saved.
HACSU acting state secretary Robbie Moore described the case as alarming and indicative of the issues facing the health system.
“Had the ambulance got there sooner, there may have been a better outcome,” he said.
“We’ll never know that … but it further highlights what a significant issue ramping is because it does put the community at risk.”
Mr Moore said the ambulance service was not able to trigger an escalation surge level that would enable crews to be released from the RHH, because the communications teams were too busy taking calls.
The union also said the on-call intensive care paramedic was not called in for the job.
Federal Member for Clark Andrew Wilkie said he was horrified by the case of the Brighton woman who waited almost seven hours for an ambulance.
Mr Wilkie wrote to Premier Peter Gutwein on Thursday to escalate his concerns about the issue of ramping.
“Ambulance ramping at the Royal Hobart Hospital is risking lives and I fear, that if nothing is done to address this choke on Tasmania’s health system, it’s only a matter of time before more people die,” Mr Wilkie wrote said.
A state government spokeswoman said Ambulance Tasmania had started rolling out secondary triage this month, which will mean more paramedics would be available to attend to the most urgent of call outs.
The spokeswoman said the government was working to solve longstanding patient flow and demand challenges.
Originally published as Launceston General Hospital nurses at ‘breaking point’ over poor ED staffing levels
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