Ms ROSOL (Bass) – Honourable Speaker, I rise this evening to speak about a situation that occurred at the Launceston General Hospital emergency department last night and this morning. The situation was so dire that the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (ANMF) put a call out on social media for any nursing staff who might be available to come in and offer their services at the emergency department last night. A number of people did put their hands up on social media. Looking at some of the comments people made, there were apologies by staff who had had to take leave from the night shift and were feeling bad about it. There were other staff who had offered to swap from the morning shift to work the night shift, but were told that the situation was similarly bad this morning and they would be needed in the morning, so that they would not be able to swap over to help the situation.
This is a crisis that has happened in the emergency department in the last 24 hours, but it is a crisis that has been going on for a very long time, which kind of goes against the meaning of crisis. However, this is a prolonged situation that has been happening in the emergency department at Launceston General Hospital. In August this year, the ANMF called a Code Yellow Protocol, and called on the government and the Department of Health to call a Code Yellow, which is an internal emergency escalation that recognises an emergency situation within the hospital due to internal issues. This was called for by the ANMF back in August and has been in place on and off since that time, as the staffing levels have dropped at times well below the agreed staffing levels within the department. The ANMF has called on the management of the hospital, the Department of Health and the government to all call Code Yellow and recognise the situation, and, in so doing, to trigger a response that would result in improvements and address the issues. The ANMF have been calling for additional resources for LGH emergency department, including increased staffing and increased resources.
We have become aware in the last few days of a situation where some potential applicants have been trying to become staff at the Launceston General Hospital, but the recruitment process has been taking such a long time they have been unable to help. We have heard it can take a minimum of four months to hire staff for the casual pool. Also, while on one hand the government is talking about a recruitment blitz, on the other hand, other people are telling us there is a recruitment freeze, which fits with vacancy control measures. There seem to be contradictory reports on what is happening in this situation. However, it is clear there are people wanting to be employed, to join the staff and help out in that situation, but due to the recruitment processes, the procedures and bureaucracy, and all the things that need to happen to employ staff, that is not able to happen at the moment.
The implications of this are twofold. The staff are working in an incredibly stressful situation in incredibly stressful conditions. The roll-on effect when there are reduced numbers of staff on the ward is that patient care is compromised. It is important that every action possible is taken to address this situation. For that reason, the Greens call on the Health department to listen to the ANMF and the calls of staff to ensure that safe staffing solutions are put in place, that there is an increase in staffing and increased resources for the LGH emergency department as soon as possible, and that all those blockages to people being employed in the recruitment process are explored and removed so that we can have an improvement in the staffing levels at LGH for the benefit of the staff and for all the patients who go there for care.
