Frontline staff call on major parties to come up with fix for the state’s ailing health system

The state’s frontline health staff say they are too few in numbers, overworked, underpaid and demoralised — and have called on the major political parties to come up with a fix.

Rachael Davis specialist radiographer at the Royal Hobart Hospital, Bruce Levett CEO Health Consumers Tasmania, Lauren Vanier pharmacist at the Royal Hobart Hospital, Michael Lumsden-Steel Australian Medical Association Tasmania spokesman. Urgent call for action on health system pressures ahead of state election. Picture: Nikki Davis-Jones

The state’s frontline health staff say they are too few in numbers, overworked, underpaid and demoralised — and have called on the major political parties to come up with a fix.

Representatives of the Australian Medical Association, the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation, the Health and Community Services Union, Health Consumers Tasmania and the Medical Staff Association held a press conference in Hobart on Thursday calling for a plan to fix the state’s ailing health system.

Australian Medical Association Tasmania spokesman Michael Lumsden-Steel said the hospital system could not operate on a crisis footing forever.

Rachael Davis specialist radiographer at the Royal Hobart Hospital, Bruce Levett CEO Health Consumers Tasmania, Lauren Vanier pharmacist at the Royal Hobart Hospital, Michael Lumsden-Steel Australian Medical Association Tasmania spokesperson. Picture: Nikki Davis-Jones

“The bed block that we know that we have on a day-in day-out basis, needs a whole of government _ and that’s going to be the state government working with the federal government to come up with a funding solution, which is needed for beds for staff infrastructure, resources,” Mr Lumsden-Steel said.

“It’s not just doctors, it’s not just nurses, it’s not just our health workers, it’s the whole system.

“We talk about relieving the bed pressures and getting the ambulances to get unloaded within 60 minutes but we need to manage resources and the infrastructure.

‘There’s an infrastructure plan, it’s on the horizon for 2050.

“We can’t simply wait that time. We need those key infrastructure projects, identified, funded and bought forward.”

The secretary of the Health and Community Services Union Robbie Moore said silence on the issue had been deafening to date.

“We’re now 24 days from a state election and we have not seen the major parties focus on our health system enough,” he said.

“We know that health is the number one issue for Tasmanians, we have a failing health system that is seeing really negative outcomes for patients, because we see ramping, because we see bed block in our emergency department and in our hospitals and we’ve seen no announcements in relation to that.

“We would like to see some real positive announcements of a change to our health system.”

Rachael Davis specialist radiographer at the Royal Hobart Hospital, Bruce Levett CEO Health Consumers Tasmania, Lauren Vanier pharmacist at the Royal Hobart Hospital, Michael Lumsden-Steel Australian Medical Association Tasmania spokesperson. Urgent call for action on health system pressures ahead of state election. Picture: Nikki Davis-Jones

Working with communities to keep people healthy was vital to relieving pressure on hospitals, said Bruce Levett from Health Consumers Tasmania.

“We call on all parties and independents to commit to every Tasmania if they choose to have a free health and wellbeing check every two years because that’ll keep people away from hospitals.

“People in regional remote areas are really struggling with access to health care. Communities are telling us that they want regional and remote health care to be strengthened.

“So again, we ask all parties and independents to look at different models of care in regional remote areas including nurse practitioners and paramedics, stronger virtual care that is linked to a GP service and mobile health hubs that can provide an outreach service to those remote areas.”

Lauren Vanier works as a pharmacist at the Royal Hobart Hospital. She said staff were struggling to cope.

“It’s very difficult when it’s busy, and it’s busy all the time because we’re quite short-staffed,” she said.

“What that means, in real terms is that there is not enough staff to get all of the work done.

“It means that there are some patients that have their medications delayed.

“From a pharmacy perspective, it means that not all patients get to have the full service that we would like to provide.

“It’s quite demoralising for the staff on the floor because as health workers, we want to do the best job we can for the patients.”

And policy analyst Martyn Goddard said neither of the absences of serious policy was at odds with the scale of the crisis.

“You have to ask yourself why the government which has presided over ten years of decline, ten years of scandal. isn’t mentioning health in its policy brief,” he said.

“Why the Labor Party has got nothing more than a series of minor, unrelated, meaningless thought bubbles that don’t add up to a health policy. Do these people actually care? You have to ask yourself what planet are these people on?

“They are killing people in the hospitals of this state. People in their hundreds are dying avoidably because the system is in such chaos.”