Shadow Minister for Health and Human Services

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19
Nov

More hospital beds needed

2008

High occupancy levels and overcrowding in public hospitals is estimated to cause 1500 patient deaths a year nationwide, Shadow Minister for Health and Human Services, Brett Whiteley, said today.

The Federal Australian Medical Association Scorecard released last week said there are 1500 unnecessary deaths in Australia each year due to “access block” and overcrowding in public hospitals – more than the number of people who die in road accidents each year.

“Emergency Department bottlenecks, cancellation of elective surgery and unsafe occupancy levels of public hospitals all point to the need for more hospital beds,” Mr Whiteley said.

“Access block is worsening in Tasmania and can only be realistically fixed in two ways.

“We must either increase the care provided outside of hospitals or we must increase capacity in, and access to, hospitals by growing bed numbers. We should do both.”

A recent study commissioned by the Australian College of Emergency Medicine revealed that ‘if average bed occupancy rises to 90% or more, access block crisis are routinely expected’.

In Tasmania, however, the Launceston General Hospital has been running at 105-110% bed capacity since mid-year and ambulance ramping is continuing to occur at the Royal Hobart Hospital.

Mr Whiteley has asked the Legislative Council Select Committee Inquiry into Tasmania’s Public Hospital System to determine whether Tasmania has an adequate number of hospital beds on the basis of the State’s population, ageing demographic and relatively poor health status compared with other States.

“Too many people with serious illness have had their treatment or surgery delayed because they could not access an inpatient bed,” Mr Whiteley said.

“The bottom line is that lack of access results in cancelled operations, ongoing pain, complications and in some cases early death.

“The AMA Scorecard last week ranked Tasmania 5th in relation to public beds per 1000 weighted population, stating Australia had 67% fewer hospital beds compared with 20 years ago.

“However, beds in Tasmania have been closed over the past few years to save money, and the Minister for Health, Lara Giddings, has clearly stated that she supports this practice.

“The Minister won’t say whether her new $1 billion hospital at the railyards includes more hospital beds, nor has she made comment about the need for additional beds at the LGH.

“We don’t know from day to day how many of our inpatient beds in Tasmania are closed because of staff or funding shortages or because they are occupied by people with disabilities or elderly patients awaiting alternative accommodation in the community.”

Mr Whiteley said alongside adopting the recommendations of the Australian Nursing Federation’s paper on hospital inefficiencies delivered to the State Government in April 2008, it was timely to also assess whether our bed numbers in Tasmania were adequate.

“The Federal AMA has called for a cash injection of $3 billion to fund at least 3750 extra beds, plus the associated staff and infrastructure, so public hospitals could operate at internationally-accepted safe bed occupancy levels of 85 per cent or less,” Mr Whiteley said.

“The figure of 3750 beds was reached by canvassing each State AMA on the number of additional beds that would be needed to ease access block.”

Mr Whiteley said it was time for all State Health Ministers to lobby their Federal counterparts to address this issue.

“While the State Liberals support providing alternatives to hospital-based care – and believe these options should be more thoroughly pursued in Tasmania – we should not pretend more hospital beds aren’t needed too.”