The Rockliff Government’s transfer of care protocol is nothing more than a transfer of chaos

The Rockliff Government’s transfer of care protocol is not solving ambulance ramping. It is simply moving the pressure from ambulances into emergency departments and corridors.

Today, the ANMF and AMA will outline their evidence before the Tasmanian Industrial Commission after healthcare workers were forced to seek intervention as a last resort to protect patient safety. 

The Government promised to “ban ambulance ramping”, but they’ve done nothing of the sort. The data on ambulance response times and emergency department outcomes shows this clearly.

With no additional resources to support emergency department staff, the so-called ban on ambulance ramping just shifts the pressure from one exhausted frontline to another.

And there are no more resources coming – instead, after 13 years of Liberal Government waste, Eric Abetz wants Tasmanians to pay for it, with $700 million cut from the health budget.

Minister Bridget Archer should have listened to the nurses, doctors, paramedics and health professionals raising serious safety concerns from the start. Instead, she ignored the expertise of her own workforce and left nurses and doctors with no choice but to take the dispute to the Commission. 

The Commission should not have to confirm what healthcare workers have been saying for years. You can’t solve the pressure inside our hospitals by pretending it stops at the ambulance bay doors.