{"id":323467,"date":"2025-12-02T20:29:40","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T20:29:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/323467\/"},"modified":"2025-12-02T20:29:40","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T20:29:40","slug":"doctors-and-nurses-claim-ramping-protocol-gives-ambulance-patients-priority-access-to-ed-but-paramedics-disagree","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/323467\/","title":{"rendered":"Doctors and nurses claim ramping protocol gives ambulance patients priority access to ED, but paramedics disagree"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dave Allchin pedals down steep city streets for another shift at Launceston’s biggest hospital, feeling a little uneasy.<\/p>\n

For 14 years he has worked in its emergency department, treating the injured, helping the sick and comforting their loved ones.<\/p>\n

While the job is intense, it has always given him a deep sense of grounding.<\/p>\n

But these days, he worries staff shortages, under-resourcing and pressures to prioritise some patients over others are leaving him and his colleagues with a rising sense of “moral distress”.<\/p>\n

“[It’s] like a form of trauma,” the nurse said.<\/p>\n

“It makes it very difficult to work under those circumstances.”\"He<\/p>\n

Dave Allchin has worked in the Launceston General Hospital emergency department more than a decade. (ABC News: Emily Smith)<\/p>\n

Last year, the Tasmanian government announced it would “end ambulance ramping” by introducing a 60-minute transfer-of-care protocol<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This week, it announced that the time frame would drop to 45 minutes in December.<\/p>\n

That means care for ambulance patients must be transferred to the hospital within 45 minutes of their arrival, or the case will be escalated.<\/p>\n

But the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation’s (ANMF) Emily Shepherd said the protocol had already created emergency department inequalities.<\/p>\n

“[Hospital staff] do have pressure put on them by managers and senior management at the hospital to consider offloading a patient from an ambulance versus perhaps someone in the waiting room who’s been waiting longer and probably should have that bed sooner,” she said.<\/p>\n

The Australian Medical Association’s (AMA) Michael Lumsden-Steel agreed “100 per cent”.<\/p>\n

“You can see that patients that may be of a higher priority or equal priority have been waiting longer because they’re self-presented,” he said.<\/p>\n

He believes the state should focus on easing the strain on a stretched healthcare system as a whole.<\/p>\n

\"AMA<\/p>\n

AMA Tasmanian branch president Dr Michael Lumsden-Steel says transfer-of-care time frames should be a goal, but not mandated. (ABC News: Kate Nickels)<\/p>\n

But the decision to drop the transfer time to 45 minutes has the support of many paramedics, who reject claims that their patients are being prioritised.<\/p>\n

Plan to ‘end ramping’<\/p>\n

The 60-minute protocol was introduced last April to ensure ambulances were not stuck parked outside hospitals but were instead free to respond to emergencies.<\/p>\n

By some measures, it has been working, with State Health Minister Bridget Archer saying the hours Tasmanian ambulances spent ramped have reduced by nearly 64 per cent in the 2024-25 financial year.<\/p>\n

The state’s Deputy Secretary for Hospitals and Primary Care, Brendan Docherty, said there had been 85 per cent compliance with the protocol over the past 18 months.<\/p>\n

“The hospital is ready for these changes,” he said.<\/p>\n

But data obtained by the ABC shows the protocol has not improved ambulance response times<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Emily<\/p>\n

ANMF Tasmania state secretary Emily Shepherd is opposed to the protocol.\u00a0 (ABC News: Maren Preuss)<\/p>\n

The ANMF’s Ms Shepherd said the Tasmanian health system was already under extreme pressure.<\/p>\n

On November 25, for example, 144 patients presented to the Launceston General Hospital emergency department, only 26 per cent of whom were seen within the clinically recommended time.<\/p>\n

Instead of improving patient outcomes, Ms Shepherd said the new protocol often saw ambulance patients offloaded onto trolleys in hallways.<\/p>\n

“We now have corridor ramping versus ambulance ramping,” she said.<\/p>\n

She said putting extra pressure on health workers risked “moral injury”, which could see them burn out and leave the industry.<\/p>\n

She acknowledged the same could happen to paramedics if they were ramped and could not attend a triple-0 call. However, she did not believe the protocol was the right solution.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

Doctors and nurses groups say the state government should focus on addressing ‘bed block’ at hospitals.\u00a0 (ABC News: Jake Grant)<\/p>\n

The AMA’s Dr Lumsden-Steel believed the protocol created tension between hospital and ambulance staff, and warned it would put patients and staff at risk.<\/p>\n

A Tasmanian health department spokesperson said it remained committed to continued engagement to “address any concerns raised”.<\/p>\n

System won’t ‘fix itself’<\/p>\n

The 45-minute transfer window will kick in from December 15, and the state government has said it will be dropped to 30 minutes next year.<\/p>\n

Ms Archer said she would continue to discuss the matter with unions.<\/p>\n

She said patients were seen in order of clinical need no matter how they arrived at hospital.<\/p>\n

But doctors and nurses groups are concerned.<\/p>\n

“Unless there’s significant quality improvements that parallel with the targeted change, I don’t foresee it being of any benefit to the emergency department,” Mr Allchin said.<\/p>\n

But Robbie Moore, Tasmanian state secretary of the Health and Community Services Union, believes it will lead to better hospital resourcing.<\/p>\n

\"He<\/p>\n

Tasmanian state secretary of the Health and Community Services Union Robbie Moore wants the 45-minute protocol introduced.\u00a0 (ABC News: Emily Smith)<\/p>\n

“That will then mean that [state government] will put the resources into the emergency department, the resources into the rest of the hospital, to ensure that it works,” he said.<\/p>\n

He said it was simply not true that the protocol had created a two-tiered health system.<\/p>\n

“There is no priority service for ambulances,” he said.<\/p>\n

Simone Haigh, who has been a paramedic for almost 20 years, said there had long been a misconception that ambulance patients were treated first.<\/p>\n

She supported the protocol, saying ramping was a massive issue.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Simone Haigh, who has been a paramedic for almost 20 years, says many people assume ambulance patients receive priority access at hospitals, but it is not true.\u00a0 (ABC News: Emily Smith)<\/p>\n

“People who are ramped in the hospital, even though it’s not ideal, at least there are people there,” she said.<\/p>\n

“Unfortunately some of the people with their heart attacks and their asthma attacks are alone.”<\/p>\n

But she noted there was no simple fix.<\/p>\n

“To end ramping, they need to overhaul the system,” she said.<\/p>\n

“The system is massively under-resourced and it’s inefficient.”<\/p>\n

To that point, the ANMF and the AMA agreed.<\/p>\n

They believed the state government focus should be on improving “access and flow” across hospitals as a whole and focus on discussions to address chronic funding shortages in public healthcare.<\/p>\n

“I just want to give good care to my patients; that’s why I work in emergency,” Mr Allchin said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dave Allchin pedals down steep city streets for another shift at Launceston’s biggest hospital, feeling a little uneasy.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323468,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[45470,45461,11571,64,63,181991,137,500,181990],"class_list":{"0":"post-323467","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-ama","9":"tag-ambulance-ramping","10":"tag-anmf","11":"tag-au","12":"tag-australia","13":"tag-hacsu","14":"tag-health","15":"tag-healthcare","16":"tag-protocol"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323467\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}