Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today Tasmanians buying their local daily paper the Mercury read that our state's health system is now such a shambles that patients are laying on the floor of the Royal Hobart Hospital. There were 58 people in emergency yesterday waiting for admission. Some of them were laying on the floor. At least two men waited for 72 hours for admission because no beds were available under the Liberal state government. There is no natural disaster underway. There is no emergency. There is no pandemic affecting Tasmania. It's an absolute disgrace. This is the new normal under the federal Morrison and state Hodgman Liberal governments—patients waiting in misery on the floor of an Australian hospital. It's really Third World stuff. It's unbelievable.

With $11 million cut from Tasmanian hospital budgets and cuts locked in until 2025, there is little sunshine on the horizon under the Liberals. We all know that you can't cut your way to better care. If you turn up at the Hobart emergency department, you had better bring a packed breakfast, a packed lunch, a packed dinner and your pyjamas. Don't think calling an ambulance will get you admitted sooner. For the past five years under the Liberals ambulances have ramped in increasing numbers at both Hobart and Launceston General. The media has simply stopped reporting on it because it is no longer unusual. It's dog bites man. Why report it when it happens all the time? It's business as usual to see five, six, seven or even more ambulances with highly trained crews twiddling their thumbs while harried hospital staff do their best to open up beds. It's an absolute disgrace.

No-one pretends that managing health is an easy job. It can be diabolically difficult to balance increasing health needs and expectations with budgets, but the Liberals came to power in Tasmania five years ago telling Tasmanians that they had all the answers. Five years later things are worse than they have ever been. The arrogant health minister simply refuses to listen and to learn. The health minister has demonstrated time and again that the job is beyond him. He should resign or be sacked.

This is not Labor playing politics. Frontline workers and health experts are tearing their hair out. Dr Simon Judkins, the president of the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine said this:

Governments need to implement solutions now to avoid increased risk of complications, errors, death and increased costs to the health care system.

Anecdotal evidence from our members point to deteriorating conditions at the … Royal Hobart … significantly impacting the emergency departments’ ability to deliver quality, timely care to patients when they most need it.

Dr Judkins also said:

… increased demand on emergency departments, which happens every winter, are predictable, and proper planning has the potential to correct our current scenario.

Often Governments claim that winter demand is unprecedented – but we know that it’s not; it happens every year.

And I must point out that we're no longer in winter, we're in the spring, and that the facts and the figures are alarming and they are damning.

The acting Premier, Jeremy Rockliff, said of the situation overnight in Royal Hobart, 'Oh, that's not acceptable; we're very concerned about that.' He has it within his power and the power of the state Liberal government to fix this mess—to unfreeze the two per cent pay freeze they've got on public service workers and to put more staff into the hospital. It's within his power to do it.

The facts and figures are alarming and damning. Patients presenting to emergency departments requiring urgent medical attention are being left in emergency departments for longer. Just two-thirds of urgent emergency department patients in 2016-17 were seen within the recommended 30 minutes. More than half of Tasmania's public hospital doctors work unsafe hours that put them at significant risk of fatigue, including three-quarters of intensive care specialists, with the Australian Medical Association saying that the strain and the pressure on our public hospitals are having a detrimental impact on the health of our doctors. The health of the people whose job it is to look after the health of patients is being affected because of the cuts under the Liberals. It's an absolute disgrace. Public hospitals are a fundamental plank in the nation's health system, but under the state and federal Liberal governments, they are underresourced and overstretched. Doctors, nurses, allied health and care assistants and other hospital staff are constantly called on to do more with less.

According to the Hodgman Liberal government, Tasmania is currently—apparently—blessed with economic bounty. We are basking in a time of plenty! For God's sake! If we can't properly fund our hospitals and look after our sick and our elderly when things are supposedly so good, what's it going to be like when the economy takes a turn for the worse? If this is as good as it gets, it's not good enough!

Under the state and federal Liberal governments, one in four Tasmanians wait outside the clinically recommended time, the worst in the country. Twenty per cent of Tasmanian patients wait more than a year for a hip replacement, five times the national average. Forty per cent of Tasmanian patients wait more than a year for a knee replacement, six times the national average. Twelve per cent of Tasmanian patients wait more than a year for a cataract extraction, eight times the national average. Ten per cent of Tasmanian patients wait more than a year for a hysterectomy.

Premier Will Hodgman and the Tasmanian Liberals have shown time and again that they would rather buckle to the federal government than stand up to it. While the federal Liberals have ripped millions out of Tasmania, they have simply stood by, mute. Other premiers stand up for their states, but not Will Hodgman. If elected, a Bill Shorten Labor government will invest more in health, including an extra $30 million in Tasmanian hospitals, to address elective surgery waiting lists. Under the Liberals, 6,000 Tasmanians are now waiting for elective surgery, with one in 10 waiting almost a year. The government implies that elective surgery is not essential, and therefore not really all that important. But it includes vital procedures, including knee and hip replacements, cataract surgeries, tonsillectomies and hysterectomies. Too many Tasmanians are living unnecessarily with pain and inconvenience simply because the Liberals refuse to invest properly in elective surgery. Labor's $30 million investment will see almost 3,000 extra elective surgery procedures carried out, dramatically shortening the queue.

A Shorten Labor government will also restore TAZREACH, a program that allows medical specialists to visit regional areas, saving people the stress, time and cost of travel. This will have significant benefits for people in my electorate. Labor's commitments will also give Tasmania's health workforce a significant boost, gearing up the state to attract new doctors and nurses as result of hundreds of additional hours of operating time. A Shorten Labor government will invest more in every single public hospital in the country, with an extra $2.8 billion in funding for more beds and shorter surgery waiting times. Labor's Better Hospitals Fund will see $2.8 billion extra investment from 2019 to 2025, fully reversing Liberal cuts and funding more beds in emergency departments and wards, more doctors, more nurses and more health staff. This funding will be targeted to reduce emergency department and elective surgery waiting times, which have blown out under Liberal cuts to Medicare and hospitals. The national average waiting time for elective surgery is the longest on record. The number of hospital beds available for elderly Australians is the lowest on record. The number of people presenting in emergency departments is the highest on record, yet one in every three patients considered urgent is not seen on time.

The situation in Tasmania today is an absolute disgrace. I can only echo the comments of the Tasmanian Labor leader, Rebecca White, who said what's occurred is absolutely unacceptable. She said:

We need to do better and the government needs to acknowledge that and properly fund health services, properly staff health services and make sure that patients aren’t let down like the stories we’ve heard today and others. It’s just so terrible and I don’t think that any Tasmanian thinks that this is acceptable any longer.

It's certainly not acceptable.