Nurse staffing levels at Launceston General Hospital ED described as 'absolutely diabolical' by ANMF

ABC NEWS (Australia)

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.

Transcript

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

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