It’s well-known that ambulance ramping in Tasmania has spiralled out of control under the Liberals, but a government correction to figures released in June shows things are far worse than previously known. Not only that, but the Health Minister is refusing to give the community the latest wait time information.
Information provided to Greens' questions in Budget Estimates painted a grim picture of the wait times for ramped patients in the 2021-22 year. However, Health Minister Guy Barnett has quietly tabled a corrected set of these figures in Parliament thats shows shockingly longer wait times across hospitals and reporting times.
Tasmanians know ambulance ramping has become chronically bad under the Liberals, but these newly corrected wait time figures are truly disturbing. They highlight how the government has massively underestimated the scale of the ramping crisis, with patients waiting far longer than previously reported.
As if these newly corrected figures aren’t bad enough, the Liberals have for months refused to release the ramping wait time information for the 2022-23 year – in breach of Parliamentary rules, and despite agreeing to provide them in June. Given the massive increase in the number of ramped patients, it’s expected this up-to-date information will show even longer wait times than ever before.
With thousands of patients waiting in limbo for hours on end, there’s no doubt ambulance ramping is causing real and preventable harm to a significant number of Tasmanians. A recent Victorian study showed ramping wait times longer than 17 minutes led to an increased risk of death and poorer health outcomes for ramped patients. We know waiting times here are far longer than 17 minutes for most patients. At the Royal and the LGH we’re seeing hundreds of patients every month ramped for four hours or more.
The Liberals are right to be ashamed of their ambulance ramping failures, but they need to stop trying to hide this problem, to come clean with Tasmanians, and to finally take real action to tackle this issue.
Both the originally provided and the corrected information for ramping wait times is available here: https://bit.ly/corrected-ramping-info
