Endless waitlists, ambulance ramping scandals, almost no bulk-billing: health has dominated the state election campaign but has any party got the answers?
The state of the health system has dominated Tasmania’s election, with parties rushing to offer policies they hope will persuade voters.The state of the health system has dominated Tasmania’s election, with parties rushing to offer policies they hope will persuade voters.When Launceston woman Kristy Wagg, 40, had her daughter in 2016 it was a difficult birth – she had a third-degree perineal tear and needed surgery to recover.
In November 2022 she was put on the urgent waitlist for surgery, which means patients are meant to be seen in 30 days.From her GP appointment on 7 November 2019 to 12 March this year, when she spoke to Guardian Australia, Wagg spent 1,587 days on a waitlist. In 2015-16, fewer than 8% of ambulance patients arriving at hospitals were ramped – now the average is nearly 40%. In 2022-23, an average of nearly 1,800 patients a month were ramped – up from about 300 a month in 2015-16.
One paramedic Guardian Australia spoke to, who cannot be named because of the state’s laws restricting public servants from making public comments, described going to work on a recent shift where the patient had waited 13 hours for an ambulance. He had called triple zero with leg pain and turned out to have sepsis. It took three hours to treat him before they got him to the hospital. The paramedic said it was not unusual to do a 15-hour shift.
Woodruff said to raise more revenue the Greens supported cancelling the AFL stadium deal and taxing the state’s big corporations.