MP condemns icy pole penny pinching at Royal Hobart Hospital
Hospital staff wanting to offer patients an icy pole or other simple comfort foods are meeting a “crude penny-pinching” hurdle, an independent MP says. Check out the list of “non-standard food items”.
Tasmania
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A requirement that hospital staff get written permission from their CEO to supply patients with an icy pole or other simple comfort foods has been branded “a crude penny-pinching measure” by an independent MP.
Member for Franklin David O’Byrne tabled a list of Hospitals South “non-standard food items” in state parliament on Tuesday.
It includes Milo, white bread, butter, margarine, bottled water, fruit and icy poles and paper cups.
The form requires that staff wishing to provide such items to patients and their families provide written justification and seek authorisation from the chief executive of Hospitals South Joe McDonald or the Executive Director of Operations and Performance Anthony Critchley and a “relevant financial delegate”.
Instant coffee, tea, milk and water crackers are among items that don’t require permission to order.
Health spending has blown out by $345m this financial year and the state government is cutting back spending to address a massive increase in the budget deficit.
But Mr O’Byrne said denying hospital patients and their families simple comforts was not going to square the ledger.
“Wellbeing across the hospital is predictably suffering, as overworked staff and sick Tasmanians are effectively denied basic items due to ridiculous ordering processes and long timelines for orders to be fulfilled.
“This is what happens when governments invoke the blunt instrument of efficiency dividends across agencies.
“Managers are sent scrambling to save a dollar wherever they can and it is always frontline staff and patients who suffer the most.
“The overspend in the health department is a perennial problem but it won’t be solved by penny-pinching on basic comforts in hospitals.”
Mr O'Byrne said even if staff were successful in getting sign-off, the food store was only open two hours a day, five days a week.
”It could take days for a patient or staff member to receive something as simple as a bottle of water.”
Health Minister Jacquie Petrusma said she had followed up an earlier question on the topic by Mr O’Byrne and had been told they items were still available.
She said she would “follow up the allegations”.
No such ban on icy poles appears to exist at the Launceston General Hospital, where they were being distributed freely during a recent airconditioning outage that coincided with a heatwave.
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