This report card should be read as a scathing assessment of the federal and state governments’ failure to invest in Tasmania's health system to meet the demand. Politicians continue to make long-term promises for political gain with no short-term solutions.
It is essential to acknowledge how hard Tasmanian healthcare professionals work in an environment that is not resourced with enough beds, staff, IT systems, diagnostic services, and contemporary infrastructure to deliver excellent and efficient healthcare.
The primary objective must be to ensure Tasmania's hospitals meet clinical treatment 100 per cent of the time within clinically recommended time frames.
The Launceston General Hospital has some of the longest emergency department stay times in the country. This is further compounded by 40 per cent of the population not having access to private hospital emergency departments, placing all the pressure on the public hospital departments.
Tasmania's health system is failing those on wait lists for planned surgery as there are not enough specialists to see patients, there are not enough beds to meet admissions requirements, and there are delays in getting key investigations (MRI CT scans, ultrasounds and cardiac echo radiography) which delays time to diagnosis, treat, and discharge, and the resulting bed block results in patients waiting up to days in emergency departments before they are admitted to hospital.
We have failed to build capacity to support an ageing population and meet mental health needs, as well as shortfalls in paediatric care as per the Tasmania Health Service’s own outpatient waiting time dashboard.
Elective surgeries are frequently cancelled on the day due to insufficient beds or the inability to support over-running operating theatres. Outsourcing of planned surgery continues unabated, as has the outsourcing of essential medical imaging.
Tasmania needs both levels of government to stop the blame game and work together to deliver the infrastructure-required masterplans in the north, northwest, and south.
The real question though is where will the federal and state governments find the extra billion dollars a year for the health budget in Tasmania, plus the $5–6 billion needed for health infrastructure maintenance, upgrades to mental health facilities, and the new Royal Hobart Hospital required in Tasmania?
It is time for less talk and more action.
Key Takeaways
Tasmania's public hospital system remains in crisis, with all four metrics measured by the AMA remaining below national averages. The state saw a small reduction in the waiting time for planned surgery, an improvement that was offset by further falls in emergency department performance.
Table 1: Tasmania performance 2022-23 compared to the previous year
| Cat 3 ED on time |
4-hour rule |
Median surgery wait |
Cat 2 surgery wait |
| ❌ |
❌ |
✔️ |
✔️ |
Table 2: Tasmania performance 2022-23 compared to national average (below or above)
| Cat 3 ED on time |
4-hour rule |
Median surgery wait |
Cat 2 surgery wait |
| ▼ |
▼ |
▼ |
▼ |
Emergency department performance - Tasmania
Tasmania’s ability to treat and discharge emergency department patients within the recommended timeframe is well below average. Only
43 per cent of Category 3 patients are seen within the recommended timeframe, a major fall from the
66 per cent figure of 10 years ago. Meanwhile, Tasmania’s has now fallen to the bottom of the scorecard when it comes to the “four-hour rule”, with only
50 per cent of ED visits being completed within four hours or less.
Figure 3: Percentage of Category 3 (urgent) ED patients seen within the recommended time of under 30 minutes - Tas
Figure 4: Percentage of ED visits completed in four hours or less — Tas
Planned surgery performance - Tasmania
Despite remaining below average in both metrics measured by the AMA, the performance of Tasmania’s planned surgery continues its slow yet consistent climb towards an improved system. Noting that the low watermark in 2020–21 represented remarkably poor performance, Tasmania is the only state to have improved for four years in a row across both planned surgery metrics, a sign that small steps are being made to pull the system out of crisis.
However, the average wait time for each patient that has not been admitted within the clinical timeframe is alarmingly high at 289.8 days for Category 2 (recommended to occur within 90 days) and 608.5 days for Category 3 (within 365 days).
Figure 5: Median waiting time for planned surgery (days) — Tasmania
Figure 6: Percentage of Category 2 planned surgery patients admitted within the recommended (90 days) — Tasmania
Public hospital expenditure - Tasmania
Figure 7: Per person average annual percentage increase in public hospital funding by government source (constant prices) — Tasmania
|
2012‒13 to 2022‒23 |
2012‒13 to 2017‒18 |
2017‒18 to 2022‒23 |
| Federal |
1.99% |
1.84% |
2.14% |
| Tasmania Government |
7.44% |
8.32% |
6.57% |
Figure 8: Public Hospital Funding, per person, by government source (constant prices) — Tasmania
The most recent public hospital funding data is from 2022‒23. In Tasmania, most public hospital funding (62 per cent) comes from the state government. This is largely in line with the national average of 61 per cent, as state and territory governments continue to take on most of the funding burden for our public hospital system.
