Launceston General Hospital staff petition government to employ more staff and open more beds

Launceston health workers launch a petition as the Opposition heaps more pressure on Health Minister Michael Ferguson.

Launceston General Hospital registered nurse and ANMF representative Tom Millen speaks with Opposition leader Rebecca White and Labor health spokeswoman Sarah Lovell. Picture: CHRISTOPHER TESTA.

HEALTH workers have launched a petition calling on the State Government to open more beds at the Launceston General Hospital and recruit more staff to work there as they cope with a bed block “crisis”.

Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation emergency department delegate Tom Millen, a registered nurse at the LGH, said patients were left “blocking up” a vital resuscitation bay at the LGH today “because we couldn’t get them to ICU”.

“It’s just not good enough” Mr Millen said.

The petition, launched alongside Opposition leader Rebecca White and Labor health spokeswoman Sarah Lovell, also called on the government to implement all 10 recommendations from an Auditor-General report into health services — something Premier Will Hodgman said would “certainly” be done.

Eric Daniels, the Tasmanian Health Service’s executive director of operations in the North and North West, said 6500 more patients were being admitted to the LGH from the emergency department each year, with 23 per cent more full-time staff employed since 2014 allowing the hospital to re-open beds on a ward.

However, Mr Millen said there was capacity to do more to alleviate bed block at the LGH, which he said would be difficult but “not an impossible task”.

“Ward 4D, which they mentioned in their statement, is not fully open (and) we have empty beds in ICU which could be staffed,” he said.

“There are beds available in this hospital that if fully funded and staffed, we could move people out of the department and that’s all it takes.”

A report by Auditor-General Rod Whitehead last month was highly critical of authorities for failing to implement necessary reforms to ensure the state’s major hospitals were providing effective emergency care.