RHH staff praised for ‘absolutely amazing’ efforts under pressure on Christmas Day

Patients and parents have praised the efforts of Royal Hobart Hospital staff under “extremely difficult” conditions on Christmas Day.

Royal Hobart Hospital.

PATIENTS and parents have taken to social media to praise the “absolutely amazing” efforts of Royal Hobart Hospital staff as they worked under extreme pressure on Christmas Day.

One woman on Facebook said she was taken to the emergency department on Christmas night and praised staff, who did “all they could to keep the place going and people alive”.

“There were just too many patients. The current system cannot cope with the pressures it’s under,” she said.

“There were no beds for obviously very ill people. Doctors were trying their best to see patients and resorted to doing so in the waiting room.

“Staff were being abused but they continued to be polite and caring, and got on with doing their jobs.”

The woman said one little boy waited for eight hours on Christmas night to get his broken arm tended to.

Another woman said the hospital nurses had been “amazing” over Christmas while she’d been in with her baby daughter.

“There’s really no good time of the year to be in hospital with your child, but their festive spirit has made it feel a little more normal for us,” she said.

The Department of Health posted on Facebook that its staff brought festive cheer to the children’s and adolescent wards on Christmas.

Staff wore Christmas-themed scrub tops and Santa came to visit the children spending the special day in hospital.

Specialist physician in geriatric and general medicine Frank Nicklason said current conditions at the hospital were “really extremely difficult”.

He said as of Wednesday, there were 90 patients in the emergency department with all resuscitation bays occupied.

Dr Nicklason asked people to “reduce their risk” ahead of New Year’s Eve - by drinking in moderation and “looking out for your mates”.

“Try to help us out in the hospital because it’s really at a point where there’s no room to give,” he said.

‘Flogged every shift’: Dire conditions revealed at RHH

Nurses, doctors, midwives and ambulance staff are being “flogged every shift” in an “absolutely broken” Tasmanian health system, a Royal Hobart Hospital employee says.

The worker has taken to social media to describe her dire working conditions in the wake of a “Code Yellow” – an internal emergency due to critically-low staffing levels – called at the hospital on Wednesday.

A number of staff members have been mandatorily recalled from their annual leave to fill rostering gaps amid the hospital’s “significant operational pressures”.

The worker said on Facebook that under the current government management of the hospital, her workplace was “often unsafe”, with “no job satisfaction”, and that employees were forced to cope with “unrealistic” staff-to-patient ratios.

“There is a constant request for nurses to work overtime, extra shifts, and we are exhausted mentally and physically,” she said.

The worker described a typical shift in the emergency department – depicting a diabolic state of affairs in which she needed to manage numerous high-needs patients requiring critical care at once.

Department of Health secretary and State Health Commander Kathrine Morgan-Wicks. Picture: Chris Kidd

She said she’d often go hours on end without even getting a toilet break.

State Health Commander Kathrine Morgan-Wicks said the Code Yellow, and the recalling of staff, was essential to continue the safe delivery of essential services.

She asked for the Hobart community to “assist us during this busy period” by avoiding the emergency department if they had non-urgent care needs, and instead use other health services.

Meanwhile, the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation Tasmanian branch sent a letter to its members on Wednesday, advising them of their entitlements during the Code Yellow.

The ANMF encouraged staff who were “able to assist in some way, to do so” if possible to help their colleagues, but to be aware they could decline shifts if they were not in a position to accept them.

It also advised its members that if they accepted a shift while on annual leave, it must be paid at double time – or if they cancelled their annual leave, their entitlements must be re-credited.

Minister Guy Barnett said the low staffing levels were compounded by the busy Christmas period, strong winds causing respiratory conditions, plus rising Covid infections among both staff and patients.

He asked Tasmanians to remember the emergency services were for emergencies only.

Mr Barnett couldn’t answer whether or not the government had previously organised a contingency “surge workforce” for the hospital.

Opposition MP Ella Haddad said Tasmania was in an “unprecedented health crisis as a direct result of the mismanagement of this Liberal government”.

She said hospital workers had tried to engage the government in workforce planning well ahead of this busy time, but “the government failed to listen”.

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