Launceston General Hospital ED Crisis

Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (Tas Branch) held an urgent members meeting today to discuss the patient safety risks at the LGH ED.

“The nurses are calling on the Minister to urgently intervene to fund the resources to ensure safe patient care and to guarantee professional indemnity to nurses in the event of an adverse outcome. They also call on an audit of the clinical risks by the new position, Executive Director Patient Safety.”

“Nurses are working under incredible pressures with locums covering shifts and the lack of continuity of team emergency care in a highly pressured environment following the resignation of 9 ED Consultants.

The Patient First strategy released by the Minister in early April to address the RHH and LGH demand on Emergency Departments has not been implemented with no escalation policy for the LGH, no Clinical Initiative nurses training and no “red flag” strategy and this is all before the depth of winter hits.”

“Nurses have proposed around 15 solutions to improve the functions of the ED, including returning the Emergency Medical Unit to a short stay unit properly staffed with Emergency physicians rather than it be used as an overflow medical unit, the introduction of PEN nurses, additional education hours to support the junior nurses, nurse navigators to assist with patient flow and additional allied health to enable patients to be treated and discharged over the weekend rather than wait until Monday mornings.”

“Around 25 patients are waiting each morning in ED to be admitted to beds and the ED is constantly filled to capacity. The main issue is budget cuts and the inadequate number of acute beds to admit patients to meet current demand. The ED environment is not conducive to improving health outcomes”.

ANMF has informed the Minister of the outcomes and will be reporting back to members next week with a response to the proposals to ensure a safe Emergency Department.”
Neroli Ellis, ANMF