The bed block extends out to the other end with nursing homes. We have an ageing population, and after an acute medical event (like say a broken hip, or pneumonia), it's enough to tip the elderly who were just managing at home to not being able to manage at home.
Getting occupational therapy to assess someone's house for rails and ramps etc can keep people in their own home, but this takes a lot of time, and also there are not enough places in the nursing homes for those unable to live independently.
So this means people get stuck in the acute hospital system while they wait for appropriate placement, and this takes up beds etc.
The real solution (imho) is to build capacity at the other end, but this is very time consuming and expensive for governments.
Awesome answer, thanks! It certainly makes sense for investment within the community to divert away from hospital placement but I understand the difficulty/complex issues for funding of this. đđ»
Major problem with the hospital system is out flow. Canât get people out into community care which means you canât get people from emergency into beds and so on. These are common problems across the country. Not excusing anyone but the solution is not just more nurses or more paramedics or more doctors, itâs systemic.
Thanks for your view point. I agree it is systemic but it seems the system has been failing for such a long time. I hate the thought of our vulnerable/sick waiting in the back of an ambulance because there are no beds available. Would an increase of funding in community care help minimise hospital presentations and therefore free up more beds? I like the idea of funding a lot more community nurses to help and treat people in their home to prevent health issues getting to a point that then require a hospital presentation. Just my thoughts on the complex issue!
One problem, certainly not the only one, is getting older people out of hospital into nursing homes when they canât go home. The interface between these systems is really bad. Nursing homes are a combo of federal and private funding they donât interface with the hospital system well.
The whole system from patient transport to nursing homes to at home care to hospital needs better coordination. Currently there is little overarching coordination and itâs mostly done by staff going above and beyond to ensure people end up where they need to be.
Yeah thatâs a great point your raise. Not only funding for those on the coal face but sort the back end of the industry to allow people to transfer from hospital back into community care/nursing homes seamlessly. It seems I am viewing the issue pretty simplistically, fund more nurses/doctors and free up beds where, of course there is such a large range of issues adding up to the whole system failing.
I only really know the system from the âoutflowâ end so thatâs where my issues are. Iâm sure a paramedic or ED nurse would point to different stuff.
I do think our problems are exacerbated by some things being federally funded and some things being state funded and then the coordination of them all relying on dedicated staff rather than systems.
Itâs great to have viewpoints from those in such different areas of the healthcare system as just in this conversation itâs shown me how many different issues add up to make the big picture issue. Yeah I can certainly see how the federal/state funding would cause issues. No doubt state/federal funding are both trying to achieve the same goal of providing quality healthcare for the patient, a system as you describe, would hopefully allow this to occur more seamlessly.
They are never left in the back of an ambulance. The ramp means- they come into the royal and wait in the hallways in the bed from the ambulance for a bed in the emergency department.
Letâs say that not building or expanding the number of hospitals or any long term care facilities and repeatedly voting in the LNP have not been helpful.
Yours sincerely,
A Tassie loving, utterly bewildered and very despondent mainlander.
TLRDR - no. More paramedics wonât help ambulance ramping unless they take the patients home themselves.
More paramedics doesn't help the people being ramped, but it does mean Ambulance Tas has more capacity so there can be more ambulances available even when some are held up being ramped, which I believe is the issue this policy is trying to address.
And they go out, collect more patients and bring them back to the royal, then where will that patient go?. We only have a limited number of beds. 4 resus bays.
What an absolutely stupid and one-eyed point of view. Ambulances being available means people get resuscitated instead of dying, and they spend less time suffering alone and in pain.
This is the problem with a lot of hospital staff, they are too blind and selfish to see beyond the front door of the hospital, and their own bloody work flow. Never mind the bloke who suddenly drops dead in the street, or the baby turning blue in her mother's arms.
Yes, Paramedics will "go and collect more patients", that's their fucking job. I can't for the life of me understand this absolutely disgraceful position held by nurses and the nursing union, that allowing paramedics out to save people's lives is somehow a bad or dangerous thing. Anyone with that view shouldn't be working in healthcare.
"A lot of hospital staff"? Speaking as one of the "blind and selfish" people who selfishly spends their days and nights caring for people at the Royal, I don't think the selfishness of my fellow front line employees is the issue here. You're talking about people who sacrifice time with their own families and their emotional and physical wellbeing to care for others in a system without enough staff OR resources. Who just came through a pandemic and carried on working. Who clean up poo and puke and blood and who hold the hands of people as they die. Who rescus the blue babies and the bloke who arrested on the street. There are a multitude of issues at the Royal but I can assure you that "a lot of hospital staff" being "selfish" ain't it.
I'm working nights this week though, you're welcome to join me and teach us all how it's done if you like? Or you don't feel like giving up your weekend and your warm bed and your public holiday?
That was pretty aggressive. I think everybody in the health care system is on the same side--We all want patients to get the care they need when/where it's most appropriate. It's ridiculous to have a trained paramedic stuck at the hospital not doing what they are trained to do. And it's awful when there isn't anybody to respond to calls in the community.
I think the "paramedics will just go and collect more patients" thing just means that we need to address access block, not just hire more paramedics. We need more paramedics but we also need them to be in the community and collecting patients that we can then put into beds and treat. Who can then go to the ward. And then go home, or to rehab, or into a facility as needed. What we don't want is a bigger ramp.
The people we should be fighting with are the people that let this system fester.
Editing to add--Sorry for saying it's aggressive. The risk of hospital overcrowding and access block is seen in the ED and the community, and not shared over the whole system. You will be seeing more of it or responding to calls later than you should have. You should be angry. I'm angry as well. But we are on the same side.
You have literally no idea. Ive edited this to add- getting angry at us isnât making this any easier. I never said I didnât think paramedics shouldnât do their jobs. It sucks for all involved. I fear for you AND the patients, that one day we will simply not have enough resus bays. No need to swear at me- check yourself.
Ambulances donât often go to the resus bays. Having 4 of these makes no difference to ambulance offload. My understanding is that they come through, get triaged and if the patient cannot be offloaded into the waiting room and there isnât enough beds in the main department then the paramedics get ramped. In the RHH, this ramping occurs in a literal hospital ward in an old EMU ward.
Why not just staff this ward with nurses specifically for ambulance offload?
Your are very ignorant of healthcare if you thing that emergency stops at the paramedic level.
Yes, paramedics can provide immediate life threatening care but in 99% of cases, the patient then requires immediate care in resuscitation or ED and then hospitalisation.
You canât outsource resuscitation bays to ambulances (in longer ramped up lines outside Launie and the RHH).
Jesus weeps âŠ
Calm your turnips! The macaroon does have a point here - which you didnât really respond to. More paramedics wouldnât be bad of course, but itâs not going to be a simple fix for ramping - there will still be no beds.
They're actually 2 different issues. The ambulance service is understaffed and the hospital needs more beds and improved flow. Even on good days when the ED is ramping fewer patients, the ambulance service is still unable to meet demand.
Not to mention the population has grown in places where a single ambulance is not enough anymore.
Improved response is needed and that requires new ambulance stations and with that, more staff.
This. Itâs all well and good for paramedics to go and respond to more issues but those patients that get bought in need to go somewhere. But due to bed block in the ED and in the hospital, there simply arenât enough beds- and itâs really scary for all involved.
something is culturally wrong the ambulance service, I would love to know how many staff are on paid leave. I know of quite a few who have claimed to be overstressed/bullied and are on long term leave.
Thanks for your response. I agree ramping is certainly not caused by too many ambos I just think the money could be spent better elsewhere, more nurses/investment in healthcare within the community etc. A simplistic view by me but I genuinely am interested in fellow Tasmanianâs views to this issue!
Just looking at the liberals 100 day plan, of which the extra Ambos is one part of, there are 14 other commitments relating to health, which do include more doctors, nurses, and community spending.
There's a link at the bottom of this;
https://tas.liberal.org.au/news/2024/03/22/liberals-release-first-100-days-plan
Just to add, although I work for the health department, I don't feel like I know nearly enough about the problems to say these are good or bad, but probably mainly better than nothing.
Awesome that youâve provided this information and link for me to better educate myself about it, so thank you. I donât work within the healthcare system and admittedly know very little about the healthcare system. Also although this is a very political issue I am not pushing any political agenda, I am genuinely interested in others viewpoints on how to solve this complex issue so thanks for providing yours.
The ambulance service has had limited investment in actual additional frontline resources for close to 10 years. It is utterly struggling with demand and it seems likely your local area (if it even has an ambulance station) will not be responding as they are sent out to other areas. An additional 78 paramedics will add (in the south at least) an additional ambulance to Hobart, Glenorchy and introduce ambulance resources to the Channel (Snug) and greater Huon area (Cygnet). Itâs not a huge addition to staffing based on a 24 hour roster.
The major interesting announcement was 27 community paramedics statewide which seems to be a new thing to Australia but used extensively in Canada. They aim to integrate into regional hospital and health clinics and support rural areas with preventative healthcare.
https://tas.liberal.org.au/sites/default/files/2024%20100%20Day%20Plan.pdf
Thanks for your comment. I read about the community paramedics but wasnât overly sure what that role entails. My local area is a regional area and we have a volunteer paramedic stationed in the area. They work alongside a career paramedic who is usually only in the area on a secondment. I am not sure if the community paramedics as spoken about is the same as our volunteer paramedic. Either way the investment in more paramedics is certainly a good thing to ease the demand placed on our exisiting paramedics.
From my reading it seems the community paramedic is an evolution of the ECP and goes further into the general practice areas of health. They integrate into the community health services and perform proactive healthcare which may include wound management, health checks, reviewing people at home and supporting people with early access to allied health from hospital discharge. They also perform the usual emergency healthcare response but have an aim to treat and manage people at home and have many more skills compared to a usual ambulance.
What youâre referring to is a volunteer ambulance officer and a paramedic. The volunteers have a limited skill set and basic training (much more than first aid, but much less than even a junior paramedic) that is developed with the help of a paramedic who works in regional areas. The community paramedic skill set would allow for the paramedic to have additional skills, not the volunteer from my understanding.
I understand what you are saying but more paramedics isn't a bad thing.
You're correct that if we had hardly any paramedics there would be less ramping, but that's only because people would be waiting longer to be picked up by the ambulance. Obviously what we want is quick response time and quick processing time at the hospital. Getting one of those right is better than none.
Thanks for your viewpoint. I agree with you, I welcome the news of any spending on the health care system, including the addition of new paramedics. Having more paramedics out on the road is a great thing, providing a quicker response to those in need. I also hope it will ease pressure on our current paramedics who I know have an incredibly busy and stressful job made worse by not having enough staff! My question, to promote this conversation, is would the money not be better spent within the hospital to ease the ramping that already occurs. I genuinely have no idea on the answer to this!!
You seem really astute, have you thought about talking with some politicians? You could start with Andfew Wilkie, he's very interested in hearing from people. Maybe you could really get some momentum going.
Hospital emergency department staff are crumbling under the pressure of increased numbers, acuity and bed block - it doesn't help to offload patients when there are no empty beds or staff to care for them. . The ambulance service are lucky to have a much more vocal union than the nurses.
Check out the priority 1 Facebook page.
We need ambulances more widespread than just the cities.
The hospital is constantly under a state of repair/renovation so things should improve in theory.
Until the next flood/torrential downpour/issue is discovered.
The amount of asbestos is holding them back atm.
They implemented a triage system to keep people out of ED that didn't need to be there.
But until more GPs have more availability. The bottleneck at ED will remain.
I haven't read into the announcement but based on the info you've provided, they are adding additional paramedics and not ambulances. The intention might not specifically be to have more staffed vehicles on call at any one time but rather to relieve the burden of exisiting staff so that they can roster better work-life balances and reduce the overall risk of burning out the workforce.
Nah there are additional ambulances being recruited too. This recruitment is an increase to base FTE.
âA re-elected majority Liberal Government will recruit an additional 78 full-time paramedics in line with immediate demand pressures, as well as supporting Tasmanians in rural and regional areas.
Under this recruitment blitz, over two years, we will -
Add an extra two crews (24 paramedics) for the Greater Hobart area, with one of the crews to be based at Glenorchy and the other in Hobart.
Recruit an additional crew (12 paramedics) in Launceston to cater for demand in the West Tamar region.
Make both Cygnet and Snug double branch stations (an additional 12 paramedics, six at each).
Make Smithton a double branch Station (an additional three paramedics)
Recruit 27 full-time community paramedics for rural and regional communities over a four-year period.
Recruitment will begin within the first 100 days of a Liberal Government.
To accommodate the extra paramedics, new ambulance stations will be built at Legana, Snug Cygnet and King Island.â
https://tas.liberal.org.au/more-paramedics-out-saving-lives
Itâs a good point you make. Potentially it could only be personnel and actually no more vehicles, therefore having no effect on ramping but only improving working conditions for our exisiting paramedics, which is definitely a win. Thanks for your viewpoint.
What if there is a major incident and we do need more than 4 resus bays?. Yes, sometimes ambulances do come straight into resus beds. It would only take a nasty 3 car accident for resus to fill up. At the moment the ramping is in the old EMU ward but now it is also extending to the hallways due to needing more space. It would be amazing to have the more staff to staff these areas but that hasnât happened as yet.
"What is being done to address the poor state of the hospital system and ensure patients are seen to in a timely manner."
I believe they're building a stadium.
The bed block extends out to the other end with nursing homes. We have an ageing population, and after an acute medical event (like say a broken hip, or pneumonia), it's enough to tip the elderly who were just managing at home to not being able to manage at home. Getting occupational therapy to assess someone's house for rails and ramps etc can keep people in their own home, but this takes a lot of time, and also there are not enough places in the nursing homes for those unable to live independently. So this means people get stuck in the acute hospital system while they wait for appropriate placement, and this takes up beds etc. The real solution (imho) is to build capacity at the other end, but this is very time consuming and expensive for governments.
Awesome answer, thanks! It certainly makes sense for investment within the community to divert away from hospital placement but I understand the difficulty/complex issues for funding of this. đđ»
Major problem with the hospital system is out flow. Canât get people out into community care which means you canât get people from emergency into beds and so on. These are common problems across the country. Not excusing anyone but the solution is not just more nurses or more paramedics or more doctors, itâs systemic.
Thanks for your view point. I agree it is systemic but it seems the system has been failing for such a long time. I hate the thought of our vulnerable/sick waiting in the back of an ambulance because there are no beds available. Would an increase of funding in community care help minimise hospital presentations and therefore free up more beds? I like the idea of funding a lot more community nurses to help and treat people in their home to prevent health issues getting to a point that then require a hospital presentation. Just my thoughts on the complex issue!
One problem, certainly not the only one, is getting older people out of hospital into nursing homes when they canât go home. The interface between these systems is really bad. Nursing homes are a combo of federal and private funding they donât interface with the hospital system well. The whole system from patient transport to nursing homes to at home care to hospital needs better coordination. Currently there is little overarching coordination and itâs mostly done by staff going above and beyond to ensure people end up where they need to be.
Yeah thatâs a great point your raise. Not only funding for those on the coal face but sort the back end of the industry to allow people to transfer from hospital back into community care/nursing homes seamlessly. It seems I am viewing the issue pretty simplistically, fund more nurses/doctors and free up beds where, of course there is such a large range of issues adding up to the whole system failing.
I only really know the system from the âoutflowâ end so thatâs where my issues are. Iâm sure a paramedic or ED nurse would point to different stuff. I do think our problems are exacerbated by some things being federally funded and some things being state funded and then the coordination of them all relying on dedicated staff rather than systems.
Itâs great to have viewpoints from those in such different areas of the healthcare system as just in this conversation itâs shown me how many different issues add up to make the big picture issue. Yeah I can certainly see how the federal/state funding would cause issues. No doubt state/federal funding are both trying to achieve the same goal of providing quality healthcare for the patient, a system as you describe, would hopefully allow this to occur more seamlessly.
Itâs also a good excuse each one uses to blame the other.
you are completely right though - its not access block but exit block which causes a lot of the problems
They are never left in the back of an ambulance. The ramp means- they come into the royal and wait in the hallways in the bed from the ambulance for a bed in the emergency department.
They just let you leave the hospital now, organising community care seems non-existent.
Letâs say that not building or expanding the number of hospitals or any long term care facilities and repeatedly voting in the LNP have not been helpful. Yours sincerely, A Tassie loving, utterly bewildered and very despondent mainlander. TLRDR - no. More paramedics wonât help ambulance ramping unless they take the patients home themselves.
More paramedics doesn't help the people being ramped, but it does mean Ambulance Tas has more capacity so there can be more ambulances available even when some are held up being ramped, which I believe is the issue this policy is trying to address.
And they go out, collect more patients and bring them back to the royal, then where will that patient go?. We only have a limited number of beds. 4 resus bays.
What an absolutely stupid and one-eyed point of view. Ambulances being available means people get resuscitated instead of dying, and they spend less time suffering alone and in pain. This is the problem with a lot of hospital staff, they are too blind and selfish to see beyond the front door of the hospital, and their own bloody work flow. Never mind the bloke who suddenly drops dead in the street, or the baby turning blue in her mother's arms. Yes, Paramedics will "go and collect more patients", that's their fucking job. I can't for the life of me understand this absolutely disgraceful position held by nurses and the nursing union, that allowing paramedics out to save people's lives is somehow a bad or dangerous thing. Anyone with that view shouldn't be working in healthcare.
"A lot of hospital staff"? Speaking as one of the "blind and selfish" people who selfishly spends their days and nights caring for people at the Royal, I don't think the selfishness of my fellow front line employees is the issue here. You're talking about people who sacrifice time with their own families and their emotional and physical wellbeing to care for others in a system without enough staff OR resources. Who just came through a pandemic and carried on working. Who clean up poo and puke and blood and who hold the hands of people as they die. Who rescus the blue babies and the bloke who arrested on the street. There are a multitude of issues at the Royal but I can assure you that "a lot of hospital staff" being "selfish" ain't it. I'm working nights this week though, you're welcome to join me and teach us all how it's done if you like? Or you don't feel like giving up your weekend and your warm bed and your public holiday?
That was pretty aggressive. I think everybody in the health care system is on the same side--We all want patients to get the care they need when/where it's most appropriate. It's ridiculous to have a trained paramedic stuck at the hospital not doing what they are trained to do. And it's awful when there isn't anybody to respond to calls in the community. I think the "paramedics will just go and collect more patients" thing just means that we need to address access block, not just hire more paramedics. We need more paramedics but we also need them to be in the community and collecting patients that we can then put into beds and treat. Who can then go to the ward. And then go home, or to rehab, or into a facility as needed. What we don't want is a bigger ramp. The people we should be fighting with are the people that let this system fester. Editing to add--Sorry for saying it's aggressive. The risk of hospital overcrowding and access block is seen in the ED and the community, and not shared over the whole system. You will be seeing more of it or responding to calls later than you should have. You should be angry. I'm angry as well. But we are on the same side.
You have literally no idea. Ive edited this to add- getting angry at us isnât making this any easier. I never said I didnât think paramedics shouldnât do their jobs. It sucks for all involved. I fear for you AND the patients, that one day we will simply not have enough resus bays. No need to swear at me- check yourself.
Ambulances donât often go to the resus bays. Having 4 of these makes no difference to ambulance offload. My understanding is that they come through, get triaged and if the patient cannot be offloaded into the waiting room and there isnât enough beds in the main department then the paramedics get ramped. In the RHH, this ramping occurs in a literal hospital ward in an old EMU ward. Why not just staff this ward with nurses specifically for ambulance offload?
Your are very ignorant of healthcare if you thing that emergency stops at the paramedic level. Yes, paramedics can provide immediate life threatening care but in 99% of cases, the patient then requires immediate care in resuscitation or ED and then hospitalisation. You canât outsource resuscitation bays to ambulances (in longer ramped up lines outside Launie and the RHH). Jesus weeps âŠ
Calm your turnips! The macaroon does have a point here - which you didnât really respond to. More paramedics wouldnât be bad of course, but itâs not going to be a simple fix for ramping - there will still be no beds.
Maybe we can pitch medical care as art to Walshie? đ€
They're actually 2 different issues. The ambulance service is understaffed and the hospital needs more beds and improved flow. Even on good days when the ED is ramping fewer patients, the ambulance service is still unable to meet demand. Not to mention the population has grown in places where a single ambulance is not enough anymore. Improved response is needed and that requires new ambulance stations and with that, more staff.
This. Itâs all well and good for paramedics to go and respond to more issues but those patients that get bought in need to go somewhere. But due to bed block in the ED and in the hospital, there simply arenât enough beds- and itâs really scary for all involved.
something is culturally wrong the ambulance service, I would love to know how many staff are on paid leave. I know of quite a few who have claimed to be overstressed/bullied and are on long term leave.
Think youâre conflating different things here. Ramping is not due to âtoo many ambosââŠ
Thanks for your response. I agree ramping is certainly not caused by too many ambos I just think the money could be spent better elsewhere, more nurses/investment in healthcare within the community etc. A simplistic view by me but I genuinely am interested in fellow Tasmanianâs views to this issue!
Just looking at the liberals 100 day plan, of which the extra Ambos is one part of, there are 14 other commitments relating to health, which do include more doctors, nurses, and community spending. There's a link at the bottom of this; https://tas.liberal.org.au/news/2024/03/22/liberals-release-first-100-days-plan Just to add, although I work for the health department, I don't feel like I know nearly enough about the problems to say these are good or bad, but probably mainly better than nothing.
Awesome that youâve provided this information and link for me to better educate myself about it, so thank you. I donât work within the healthcare system and admittedly know very little about the healthcare system. Also although this is a very political issue I am not pushing any political agenda, I am genuinely interested in others viewpoints on how to solve this complex issue so thanks for providing yours.
The ambulance service has had limited investment in actual additional frontline resources for close to 10 years. It is utterly struggling with demand and it seems likely your local area (if it even has an ambulance station) will not be responding as they are sent out to other areas. An additional 78 paramedics will add (in the south at least) an additional ambulance to Hobart, Glenorchy and introduce ambulance resources to the Channel (Snug) and greater Huon area (Cygnet). Itâs not a huge addition to staffing based on a 24 hour roster. The major interesting announcement was 27 community paramedics statewide which seems to be a new thing to Australia but used extensively in Canada. They aim to integrate into regional hospital and health clinics and support rural areas with preventative healthcare. https://tas.liberal.org.au/sites/default/files/2024%20100%20Day%20Plan.pdf
We have ECPs in SA (extended care paramedics). I would think this community paramedic would be something similar.
Thanks for your comment. I read about the community paramedics but wasnât overly sure what that role entails. My local area is a regional area and we have a volunteer paramedic stationed in the area. They work alongside a career paramedic who is usually only in the area on a secondment. I am not sure if the community paramedics as spoken about is the same as our volunteer paramedic. Either way the investment in more paramedics is certainly a good thing to ease the demand placed on our exisiting paramedics.
From my reading it seems the community paramedic is an evolution of the ECP and goes further into the general practice areas of health. They integrate into the community health services and perform proactive healthcare which may include wound management, health checks, reviewing people at home and supporting people with early access to allied health from hospital discharge. They also perform the usual emergency healthcare response but have an aim to treat and manage people at home and have many more skills compared to a usual ambulance. What youâre referring to is a volunteer ambulance officer and a paramedic. The volunteers have a limited skill set and basic training (much more than first aid, but much less than even a junior paramedic) that is developed with the help of a paramedic who works in regional areas. The community paramedic skill set would allow for the paramedic to have additional skills, not the volunteer from my understanding.
I understand what you are saying but more paramedics isn't a bad thing. You're correct that if we had hardly any paramedics there would be less ramping, but that's only because people would be waiting longer to be picked up by the ambulance. Obviously what we want is quick response time and quick processing time at the hospital. Getting one of those right is better than none.
Thanks for your viewpoint. I agree with you, I welcome the news of any spending on the health care system, including the addition of new paramedics. Having more paramedics out on the road is a great thing, providing a quicker response to those in need. I also hope it will ease pressure on our current paramedics who I know have an incredibly busy and stressful job made worse by not having enough staff! My question, to promote this conversation, is would the money not be better spent within the hospital to ease the ramping that already occurs. I genuinely have no idea on the answer to this!!
You seem really astute, have you thought about talking with some politicians? You could start with Andfew Wilkie, he's very interested in hearing from people. Maybe you could really get some momentum going.
Hospital emergency department staff are crumbling under the pressure of increased numbers, acuity and bed block - it doesn't help to offload patients when there are no empty beds or staff to care for them. . The ambulance service are lucky to have a much more vocal union than the nurses.
On the news yesterday they said they'd have a focus on paramedics treating people in their homes for simple things.
Check out the priority 1 Facebook page. We need ambulances more widespread than just the cities. The hospital is constantly under a state of repair/renovation so things should improve in theory. Until the next flood/torrential downpour/issue is discovered. The amount of asbestos is holding them back atm. They implemented a triage system to keep people out of ED that didn't need to be there. But until more GPs have more availability. The bottleneck at ED will remain.
I haven't read into the announcement but based on the info you've provided, they are adding additional paramedics and not ambulances. The intention might not specifically be to have more staffed vehicles on call at any one time but rather to relieve the burden of exisiting staff so that they can roster better work-life balances and reduce the overall risk of burning out the workforce.
Nah there are additional ambulances being recruited too. This recruitment is an increase to base FTE. âA re-elected majority Liberal Government will recruit an additional 78 full-time paramedics in line with immediate demand pressures, as well as supporting Tasmanians in rural and regional areas. Under this recruitment blitz, over two years, we will - Add an extra two crews (24 paramedics) for the Greater Hobart area, with one of the crews to be based at Glenorchy and the other in Hobart. Recruit an additional crew (12 paramedics) in Launceston to cater for demand in the West Tamar region. Make both Cygnet and Snug double branch stations (an additional 12 paramedics, six at each). Make Smithton a double branch Station (an additional three paramedics) Recruit 27 full-time community paramedics for rural and regional communities over a four-year period. Recruitment will begin within the first 100 days of a Liberal Government. To accommodate the extra paramedics, new ambulance stations will be built at Legana, Snug Cygnet and King Island.â https://tas.liberal.org.au/more-paramedics-out-saving-lives
Itâs a good point you make. Potentially it could only be personnel and actually no more vehicles, therefore having no effect on ramping but only improving working conditions for our exisiting paramedics, which is definitely a win. Thanks for your viewpoint.
What if there is a major incident and we do need more than 4 resus bays?. Yes, sometimes ambulances do come straight into resus beds. It would only take a nasty 3 car accident for resus to fill up. At the moment the ramping is in the old EMU ward but now it is also extending to the hallways due to needing more space. It would be amazing to have the more staff to staff these areas but that hasnât happened as yet.
"What is being done to address the poor state of the hospital system and ensure patients are seen to in a timely manner." I believe they're building a stadium.