A parliamentary inquiry into ambulance ramping issues across the state has been given a glimpse of the pressures facing the hospitals' emergency departments. Over hours of hearings, the committee heard of staff burnout communication challenges and the pressures of bed block.
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00:00 Over his 13 years working in the emergency department, Royal Hobart Hospital nurse David
00:07 Pittaway has seen his fair share of colleagues quit.
00:11 The comments are, this is unsafe. I don't want to be here when, I don't want to front
00:18 a coroner's court.
00:20 Today he told a parliamentary inquiry the department was struggling to retain skilled
00:25 staff, who were burning out under increasing pressure. But he insists the ED is not responsible
00:32 for the ambulance ramping problem.
00:35 Please do not tinker with the emergency department. Ambulance Tasmania are not the problem. The
00:43 problem is flow out of the hospital.
00:47 That's often attributed to a lack of residential and aged care beds in the community. But the
00:53 committee heard there are beds available. And sometimes processes are the issue.
00:58 We just don't know where the beds are.
01:00 You mean the hospital doesn't know where they could discharge patients to?
01:04 The inquiry heard the communication is also a challenge. And nursing homes needed to be
01:10 given the right handovers from hospitals to care for their residents to stop them returning.
01:16 I've been struck by the number of elderly patients sent for the community to the Royal
01:21 Hobart Hospital, but also other public hospitals where they have been sent to that facility
01:27 in essence to die.
01:29 The committee also heard that around 50 long-term patients were recently discharged to residential
01:35 aged care or other similar facilities.
01:38 Mr Pitaway said while they may not have ended up in their place of choice, it did free up
01:43 beds in the hospital and ease the pressure on ED.
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