Tasmania’s top health official says the Launceston General Hospital is experiencing “impacted” capacity and is urging patients to only attend if it is a medical emergency.
“The Launceston General Hospital is currently experiencing high demand for services, particularly patients with acute health needs,” Health Secretary Dale Webster said on Tuesday evening.
“At present, clinical services are being managed at the hospital but capacity is impacted, limiting our ability to admit more patients.”
Mr Webster directed people who cannot wait for an appointment with their general practitioner to the state’s eight bulk-billed Medicare Urgent Care Clinics.
The Tasmanian branch of the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation said it understood only three beds were available across the entire hospital on Tuesday evening.
“The hospital is at critical capacity both in the emergency department but more broadly right across the hospital,” branch secretary Emily Shepherd said.
People are being urged to only attend the hospital if it is an emergency. (ABC News: Georgia Hogge)
Ms Shepherd said issues such as this occurred due to “ongoing access and flow block”.
“Effectively, there’s exceeding demand for health care through the Launceston General Hospital and insufficient capacity and flow,” she said.
“The ANMF have been calling for initiatives to improve access and flow for years now, and none of those strategies have actually been picked up.”
She said the hospital had been at critical capacity for four weeks.
On Monday last week, the union reported the hospital’s emergency department was overflowing, describing the scenes as “chaotic” and “unsafe”.
The union said it anticipated the situation would worsen, and called on Tasmanian Health Minister Bridget Archer to implement concrete solutions to address the ongoing issue.
“We’re at crisis tonight and we’ll continue to be if the government doesn’t step up and address this matter,” Ms Shepherd said.
“Our members certainly don’t want to hear that this is a federal government issue.”
The health department has been contacted for comment.
