By Minister for Health, Jacquie Petrusma
All Tasmanians deserve the right care, in the right place, at the right time – especially when they call an ambulance in an emergency.
We want our hard-working paramedics to spend less time stuck at hospitals, and more time out and about in the community helping people with lifesaving care.
We are absolutely committed to working with our great healthcare workers and unions to improve outcomes for the patients in our hospitals and in the community, which is why we made a commitment at the election to end ramping, once and for all.
And while we are considering the findings and recommendations from the select committee on Transfer of Care Delays, the evidence is clear that our plan is already working to the benefit of Tasmanians.
And the stats back it up as well, with data confirming our ambulances spent over 9,300 less hours ramped than the previous financial year – a 25.3 per cent decrease.
That’s an additional 9,300 hours that our paramedics are available in the community to help Tasmanians and do what they do best.
The amount of time that paramedics are spending at hospitals has also significantly reduced over the last 12 months, and while we know there will be fluctuations day to day and week to week, these results are a credit to all of our outstanding health workers who are doing an amazing job.
We will continue to take a measured approach as we continue our way to the national best-practice benchmark of 30 minutes.
Our 2030 Strong Plan for Tasmania’s Future is all about taking more action right now on issues affecting Tasmanians, like health, and our Government is committed to continuous improvement.
We are growing our health service as part of our record $12.9 billion investment for health over the next four years.
We’re delivering 78 new paramedics, including 27 community paramedics, along with new stations to accommodate them.
Since Tasmania’s biggest-ever healthcare recruitment blitz kicked off in late April, we’ve welcomed nearly 1,450 additional staff into our health system.
This time next year there will be even more frontline health workers in the Tasmanian health system and ambulances will be spending even less hours ramped, as we work together to create the health system Tasmanians deserve.