Royal Hobart Hospital beds crisis hits the emergency depertment, say staff and unions

AN understaffed and under-resourced RHH has resulted in no available beds in the emergency department and staff taking industrial action, say staff and unions.

A CONTINUOUSLY understaffed and under-resourced Royal Hobart Hospital has resulted in no available beds in the emergency department and staff taking industrial action, say the heads of the medical staff association and nursing union.

Royal Hobart Hospital Medical Staff Association president Frank Nicklason and Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation state secretary Neroli Ellis told the Mercury that as of yesterday afternoon 21 patients were waiting in the emergency department to be admitted to a ward bed.

Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation state secretary Neroli Ellis and Medical Staff Association president Frank Nicklason. Picture: RICHARD JUPE

“The hospital is on level three alert and at least 12 patients have waited for beds for over 12 hours already,” Ms Ellis said.

Dr Nicklason said the Tasmanian Health Service management was not listening to long-running complaints about the lack of beds and staff.

“We’ve been suggesting all sorts of things, but they haven’t been acted on with the degree of urgency required,” he said.

Dr Nicklason said several options to open up more beds had been put forward to the Tasmanian Health Service, including:

TEN beds at the Jasmine Ward, Roy Fagan Centre in Lenah Valley.

SPARE beds at the New Norfolk District Hospital.

CREATING a clearer plan for the use of spare private hospital beds.

“There has been no indication that any of these things are close to being ready,” Dr Nicklason said.

“Even if the 10 beds at the Jasmine Ward were greenlit today, it would take six weeks to have them ready for patients and in the meantime we’ve got the Christmas and New Year period to contend with.”

The Nurses Federation Medical Staff Assocoiation and AMA Tasmania have joined forces and have been distributing postcards to emergency department patients who have had to wait more than 12 hours for a bed.

The postcards are then sent directly to Health Minister Michael Ferguson urging him to increase nursing and medical staff resources at the RHH.

The campaign is set to be ramped up further, with posters to be rolled out to general practices throughout Hobart asking members of the public to write to the minister telling him “Tasmanians deserve a well resourced health system”.

Ms Ellis said some people were waiting up to 40 hours in emergency for a bed.

“At the end of the day there’s just a complete lack of resources to cope with the increasing demands — even if there was enough physical space, there aren’t enough nurses or medical staff to manage the beds,” she said.

A THS spokesman said all hospitals experienced variations in demand and clear patient flow protocols were in place to allow for redistribution of resources “in a safe, methodical way”.

“The key factor is that the patient in most need of treatment is the priority,” the spokesman said.

“While it is never ideal that anyone has to wait ... a triage system is a reality for any emergency department where saving life is a priority.”

Ms Ellis said nurses statewide had yesterday begun separate light industrial action in response to “untenable workloads”.

She said from September 2015 to August 2016, nurses and midwives worked more than 4210 double shifts, costing a total of $7.3 million.

Mr Ferguson said a formal offer including a 2 per cent pay rise for three years had been sent to the ANMF and he urged them to consider the proposal.

“It’s extremely disappointing that they are considering industrial action in the lead up to one of the busiest times of the year,” he said.

“Our constructive negotiations with the Community and Public Sector Unions ... are evidence of our commitment to achieve fair and affordable wage outcomes.”

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Originally published as Royal Hobart Hospital beds crisis hits the emergency depertment, say staff and unions