Tasmanian ambulance inquiry: Royal Hobart Hospital ED staff describe working conditions

A senior Royal Hobart Hospital emergency department nurse has described the “dangerous and stressful” conditions in the workplace, as the department works through a staff exodus.

Ambulances ramped outside the Royal Hobart Hospital emergency department on January 4, 2021. Picture: HACSU

A long-serving Royal Hobart Hospital emergency department nurse has described the “dangerous and stressful” conditions at his workplace, as the ED feels the strain of a hopelessly clogged hospital.

ED nurse manager David Pittaway, who has been working in the department since 2010, told a parliamentary inquiry there were very few staff left from when he started.

“I’m one of four or five staff remaining since I first started, There’s been a concerning number of staff that have left in that time. The comments are this is unsafe, I don’t want to front a coroner’s court. That is a very common concern of people who have left the department,” he said.

Royal Hobart Hospital emergency department nurse manager David Pittaway giving evidence to the Tasmanian parliamentary inquiry into ambulance ramping

“People are saying why would I work here? I can work somewhere else for less stress, more money and somewhere that’s not so expensive to live.”

The ambulance ramping inquiry, which held hearing in Launceston on Wednesday, held further hearings in Hobart on Thursday.

Mr Pittaway told the House of Assembly committee the emergency department was not the problem, rather bed block throughout the hospital.

The end result of that was people ramped in ambulances as the ED was full due to an inability to get patients admitted to other wards.

“The ED runs very well, had been found to run very well, tinkering around whatever is happening in the ED is not the issue, it’s what’s happening upstairs, the flow out of the hospital,” Mr Pittaway said.

“I can’t comment on what happens up in the wards. All I know is they are full.”

Mr Pittaway paid tribute to the staff in the department. “One thing I am proud of being at the Royal, we have a very collaborative and cooperative department,” he said. Mr Pittaway said he had on several occasions apologised to a full waiting room of people for the amount of time they have been waiting.