Nurse staffing levels at Launceston General Hospital ED described as 'absolutely diabolical' by ANMF
The Tasmanian branch of a nurses and midwives union has described staffing at the Launceston General Hospital as "absolutely diabolical", with claims staff shortages led to hospital beds being closed on Friday night.
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00:00The Nurses Union claims it's an emergency department running out of staff and running
00:07out of options.
00:08The ANMF says there were 15 nurses working in the Launceston General Hospital's emergency
00:14department last night, 10 short of a mandated minimum.
00:18Oh look it was absolutely diabolical and you know it was extremely stressful for staff
00:24and of course for patients, many of whom were receiving care in the waiting room.
00:28As a result, the union says 15 hospital beds were also closed.
00:34Not so, says the health secretary.
00:36At no time were 15 beds closed because of the staff shortages.
00:40As I said, it's not a case of they're closed, if we need them we'll make them available.
00:45Despite the department's assertion that beds were not closed, they absolutely were beds
00:50closed.
00:51Health staff from other areas are being sent to the LGH, including nurses from the Royal
00:57Hobart Hospital.
00:59This weekend we have a particular issue with unplanned sick leave.
01:04We are still during the day calling people to see if they can actually go down there
01:08and again as I said we'll flex up and flex down as the day goes.
01:13Nurses in Tasmania are leaving the health system almost as fast as they have been recruited.
01:18The department says 166 nurses have been hired in the past three months, but during that
01:24time 140 have left.
01:28At the same time, the department is trying to find budget savings by considering which
01:33vacant health positions can be cut.
01:36The health secretary has confirmed today not all nursing positions will be exempt from
01:42this process.
01:43No, they're not exempt from vacancy management processes.
01:47However, there is a process within nursing called the nursing hours per patient days
01:51process, which means that's the level that we should be staffing our wards.
01:57That process doesn't go through vacancy control.
02:00What we now know is that every job is at risk under Guy Barnett, front line jobs, back line
02:04jobs, every job is at risk in this health system, while he's been spending a month telling
02:09us something different.
02:10It's not honest and he hasn't been honest with Tasmanian people.
02:13Dale Webster says vacancy control is about making sure that the jobs advertised are the
02:19jobs needed.
02:21For more information, visit www.fema.gov