Blame game rages as hospital emergency department overflows

Launceston General Hospital emergency department overflowing, nurses union says Tue 7 Jul 2026 at 3:26pm In short: Tasmania's nursing union says the Launceston General Hospital emergency department was overflowing on Monday night, describing the scenes as "chaotic" and "unsafe". Federal Health Minister Mark Butler said there were obvious issues at the hospital, and called on the state government to pay closer attention to them. What's next? Tasmanian Health Minister Bridget Archer said the state government continues to invest in the health system and called on the federal government to do more to address bed-block issues. The Launceston General Hospital's (LGH) emergency department was overflowing with more than 70 patients on Monday night, according to Tasmania's nurses' union. Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (ANMF) Tasmanian branch secretary Emily Shepherd said the department was at "breaking point", with more than 45 patients in the waiting room and more than 28 people waiting for inpatient beds. She said patients were treated in trolleys in hallways and in the waiting room, ambulances were ramped, and only one resuscitation bay was available when she arrived at the hospital last night. "It was a constant shuffling by our members to try and accommodate those sickest patients into the next available bed, and that was incredibly difficult given the limited capacity in the ED and right across the LGH,"she said. Ms Shepherd said the issues are a common occurrence at the hospital, and that the union has presented several solutions to the state government about how to address the problem. "Fundamentally, it's because of a lack of access and flow initiatives that the ANMF have been calling for many years to address the whole of system, to ensure that the system is working not just in the community, not just in our hospitals and discharge, but right across the whole system to improve flow," she said. "Until we do that, we will continue to see these events where our emergency departments end up being completely at capacity, and just completely blocked." Tasmanian Health Minister Bridget Archer said the government was considering a range of options to respond to pressures in the health system and occasional increases in demand, including suggestions put forward by the union, but she also redirected blame to the federal government, calling on them to provide additional support. Federal health minister weighs in While visiting an aged care facility in Launceston today, federal Health Minister Mark Butler told reporters he has heard about issues at the LGH for far too long. "There are obviously some issues around the LGH patient flow systems, around staffing recruitment, which the Tasmanian government needs to pay closer attention to," he said. "It's time that the Tasmanian state government set about doing the hard work of implementing systems that mean last night's patient activity levels, and the ramping and all of the other things that we've been hearing about over the last 12 or 18 hours, aren't a regular occurrence in the way that they have been for far too long," he said. Mr Butler also pointed towards the hospital funding deal his government signed with states earlier this year, which will see Tasmania receive an additional $700 million of funding over the next five years. "They now have five years of dedicated, committed, additional funding from us. They can do their planning, they can allocate more money to more beds, more doctors, more nurses, because they're getting far more money from the Commonwealth,"he said. Archer responds Ms Archer said the government continues to invest in the health system, including in more staff and new facilities. But she shifted blame to the federal government and said it needs to do more to address bed block issues caused by difficulties accessing aged care and NDIS support for some patients. "There are … nearly 100 … patients across Tasmania as we speak that are medically ready for discharge from hospitals, but they do not have anywhere to go to,"she said. "These are patients that no longer need to be in a hospital, and should be in a residential aged care facility, or getting NDIS support. That is some three hospital wards." Ms Archer also said that too many patients were visiting emergency departments when they could be treated elsewhere. "On Sunday … there were 150 people presented at emergency departments across the state that were category 4 and 5 patients that would have been appropriate to be seen in another setting, either an urgent care clinic or a GP," she said. Opposition points toward budget cuts The Tasmanian opposition pointed to the government's objective to find $700 million in "operational efficiencies" within the health system over the next four years. "We know that hospitals are working under enormous pressure, as are all the hospitals in Tasmania and yet the government seems hell-bent on cutting $700 million from the health budget," said Labor health spokesperson Sarah Lovell. Ms Shepherd said the state government cannot continue to blame the federal government for issues that are occurring in the state's public hospitals. "They have their own funding to fix it," Ms Shepherd said. "$700 million has been ripped out in cost savings in this state budget this year. So what they need to do is invest the money they've been given, and fix the health system." [Image text:] EMERGENCY AMBULANCE NO PUBLIC ACCESS AMBULANCE ONLY