The Tasmanian Government is being warned to hire more doctors and nurses, or risk public safety.
The Government released figures in budget estimates revealing in the 2013-14 financial year the number of inpatients rose by 10 per cent.
Health policy analyst, Martyn Goddard, claimed staffing numbers had not risen to meet the workload.
“It’s got to a point where our hospitals can’t remain safe and our doctors and nurses are being driven into the ground,” he said.
We are now at crisis point … we need far more doctors and far more nurses.
Martyn Goddard Health industry analyst
The figures show that from mid 2014 to early 2015 the number of doctors in the state dropped.
Tim Greenaway from the Australian Medical Association says that is a grave concern.
“The likelihood, unfortunately, is that mistakes may be made and we are obviously very mindful of this, very concerned about that possibility,” he said.
In the same period the number of nurses rose, mostly in the state’s north.
That is not the case in the south however, according to Neroli Ellis from the Nursing and Midwifery Federation.
“Very few additional nurses being employed, in fact at the Royal less nurses being employed … so it’s not sustainable,” she said
Most significantly the most recent data showed the workload was up almost 10 per cent.
Mr Goddard is calling for the State Government to use the recent GST windfall of $591 million over four years to hire 300 more nurses and 80 new doctors.
“We are now at crisis point, something has to be done about it, and we need far more doctors and far more nurses,” he said.
Health Minister Michael Ferguson declined to be interviewed but in a statement said:
Mr Goddard’s analysis is flawed on a number of levels.
First, the number of nurses in our hospitals has not remained static, as he claims, it has in fact increased by 35 over the past year.
Second, there are not savings of $54 million to health in this year’s budget. The heavy lifting has been done and savings this year are just $14.2 million out of a $1.5 billion budget.
Third, the GST windfall we received this year is untied funds, it is not specifically directed to health. To use these funds to hire more staff would condemn us to another Labor boom/bust cycle which brought about the budget mess that we are trying to fix.
The release of the final white paper on health is expected by the end of the month.