Royal Hobart Hospital nurses have walked off the job over planned cuts to the Emergency Medical Unit, with doctors warning “a bed without a nurse is a closed bed”.
Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation Tasmanian branch secretary Emily Shepherd said the proposed staffing model would cut the number of nurses on evening, night and weekend shifts.
According to the ANMF, evening staffing would fall from seven nurses to six and night staffing from six to five, seven days a week, while weekend morning staffing would drop from seven to six.
“Emergency care is unpredictable,” Shepherd said.
“You cannot know at the beginning of a shift whether you will have a relatively quiet period or a sudden influx of patients requiring urgent assessment, treatment, admission or transfer.”
Union members have endorsed raising a workload dispute, which the ANMF said it would take to the Tasmanian Industrial Commission if necessary.
Australian Medical Association Tasmania president Meg Creely said cutting the unit “in the middle of an access crisis” was “frankly ridiculous”.
“A bed without a nurse is a closed bed,” she said.
“Cut the nurses and you are quietly closing beds.”
In parliament, Labor leader Josh Willie said the unit was “the part of the emergency department that keeps patients moving”.
“Will you listen to the nurses and doctors and reverse your cuts?” he asked the house today.
Greens MP Cecily Rosol said more than five nursing positions and “a third of the beds” were set to be cut.
Health Minister Bridget Archer said the unit’s current nursing staff “includes capacity above the benchmarking” under the nursing industrial agreement and the department was consulting on “bringing this back to the level under the agreement”.
“I’m advised the nurses currently working in the unit will remain there and to be clear, no beds will be shut,” she said.
She said the change would “free up nursing staff to attend to other areas in the hospital, such as the emergency department”.
Asked how the change would improve ramping, Archer pointed to 55 long-stay older patients in the Royal on Wednesday, saying: “That is beds that are not available for acute medical patients.”
The AMA called for a commission of inquiry into the health system last week.
Archer rejected that call, saying it would cost “well in excess of $30 million” and “would not help a single Tasmanian patient get the care that they need when they need it”.
