"Totally Unacceptable": Woman Dies After Ramped For Nine-Hours In Tasmanian Emergency Department

Chronic ambulance ramping amid strained emergency departments has placed Tasmania in the national spotlight.

It follows the death of a woman in her 70s on Saturday morning who was ramped for nine hours while waiting to be admitted to the Launceston General Hospital's emergency department.

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Assistant secretary for the Health and Community Services Union (HACSU) Robbie Moore said waiting that long for a bed to be made available is "totally unacceptable".

"The patient had been ramped for nine hours at the time when they passed away, and they were still in an inappropriate setting and had not been allocated a bed at that time," Mr Moore said.

"This is a very sad situation that just demonstrates how bad our health system is, that we couldn't have a bed available for a patient who clearly needed medical assistance and shows that ambulance ramping is out of control and patients' lives are being put at risk."

Moore said that while the woman was waiting for an ED bed to become available, she did receive care from emergency department staff as well as the paramedics.

"A patient being ramped for nine hours is totally unacceptable and demonstrates that we are letting down the Tasmanian community," he said.

"Unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident … we're unfortunately aware of several other incidents where patients have been unable to get a bed and passed away on the ramp."

- Mr Moore

The state's chronic ambulance ramping comes amid a national crisis, with Tasmania failing to meet performance targets.

Australian Medical Association (AMA) president Dr Omar Khorshid said in May that increased reports of ambulance ramping in Tasmania was a major concern.

“Ambulance ramping outside hospitals – sometimes for hours – means not only are ­patients not receiving timely care, but paramedics can’t respond to new emergencies,” Dr Khorshid said.

With a target to deliver 100 per cent of patients in 30 minutes, the AMA reports that only 79.6 per cent were transferred in this timeframe in 2020-21.

“Tasmania’s patient transfer performance has been \deteriorating year-on-year since at least 2015-16, where 92.1 per cent of patients were transferred within 15 minutes and 95.2 per cent were transferred within 30 minutes,” the report said.

“This represents a 26.2 per cent deterioration and 15.6 per cent deterioration in performance for the 15- and 30-minute targets respectively, compared to 2020-21.’’

It comes only two-weeks after a 13-year-old boy suffering an asthma attack stopped breathing in a taxi on the way to hospital after the boy's mother was told there would be delays with no ambulances available due to high demand.

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