ED move amid soaring waits and $700 million health cuts

With the Royal Hobart Hospital emergency department seemingly in a permanent state of crisis and ambulance ramping running rampant again, moving the ED’s entrance presents an enormous challenge to patient outcomes and a workforce already under immense pressure.

When you throw the $700 million worth of cuts Eric Abetz is making to the health system into the mix, it could be a recipe for disaster.

Over the past week, three in four patients have not been seen within clinically recommended time frames at the Royal Hobart Hospital’s emergency department.

Ramping – which the Premier promised to ban – is back in a big way, with nearly half of patients over the past week spending more than 45 minutes ramped at the Royal.

Over the weekend, the median statewide ambulance emergency response time was over 19 minutes for both days – more than four minutes above the 2024/25 average.

It’d be nice if the upgraded Royal Hobart Hospital emergency department was a silver bullet to fix the issues in the health system, but it won’t be – especially after the Liberals cut the upgrades to the dismay of doctors and nurses.

At that time, a leaked email extraordinarily revealed that the emergency department management “openly acknowledged that this design isn’t fit for purpose to meet our current needs, let alone the future needs of the department.”

Despite the best efforts of our hardworking health professionals, Tasmania’s health system is already at breaking point.

Minister Bridget Archer needs to explain how moving the ED won’t make things worse at the same time Eric Abetz cuts $700 million from the department to pay for 13 years of Liberal waste.