Staff stress adds to health crisis

THE nurse unit manager of the Launceston General Hospital emergency department has opened up about the stress his staff are under as the state’s health crisis worsens.

In evidence at the Legislative Council inquiry into acute health services in Tasmania yesterday, Scott Rigby said the pressure on his employees was becoming just as big an issue as the hospital’s bed block.

Mr Rigby gave evidence alongside the nursing union’s director of operations and strategy Andrew Brakey, who said the State Government’s “inadequate funding” was responsible for the issues in the state’s emergency departments.

It follows the Mercury revealing earlier this week a secret report showing the Government had underfunded the health system by $100 million a year.

Mr Rigby said the Launceston hospital’s emergency department had had the country’s worst waiting times twice in the past four years. He said the biggest issue was inpatients waiting for long periods because of a lack of beds.

“It’s through no fault of individuals, they work very hard and I’m very lucky to have the team I have,” he said.

“We’ve had such a great core staff group and they still are, but you can just see the pressure and strain they’re under and, fundamentally, that is becoming just as big an issue as what the bed block is.

“They’re constantly under pressure and constantly can’t get that person in and give them the treatment they need. That weighs heavily on them.”

Mr Rigby said they had converted a security room into an assessment room and were treating people in the waiting room to try to cope with the demand.

He said nurses had been forced to look after up to nine patients at a time, and studies on Launceston’s emergency department since 2008 had showed the demand outweighed the capacity.

“The longer I stay there, the longer I get the picture our resources just aren’t enough,” Mr Rigby said.

“You can see the [staff’s] anxiety, because they want to do the best for that family and when you’ve got such a busy department … it’s very hard.”

Mr Brakey said the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation Tasmanian members believed the Government’s budget constraints were putting nurses, midwives and patients at risk. He said two Launceston hospital wards, 4D and 4K, and the intensive care unit had more than 10 beds but they had not been opened or staffed because extra workers would need to be employed.

But Health Minister Michael Ferguson said 4D had been reopened after it was closed by Labor, allowing for 24 permanent beds and five flex beds, which hospital staff could open during high demand. He said the Government didn’t shy away from these challenges, and was spending more than 30 per cent of the budget on health. He said it was investing a record $757 million over the next six years to open more beds, employ more staff and build more health infrastructure.

Tasmanian Health Complaints Commissioner Richard Connock, who also gave evidence yesterday, said they had seen a steady increase in complaints in the past 10 years.

He said their office of four employees was under staffed but had previously performed “quite well” in addressing new and backlogged complaints when it had six full-time employees.

The inquiry was re-established this year to assess the current and projected demand for acute health services in Tasmania and the effect on the health system and patient outcomes.