00:00 Alex Krasnicki broke his ankle on Friday night.
00:05 In pain, he lay in his front yard for four hours before an ambulance arrived.
00:11 It felt forever, just because of all the pain that I was obviously having.
00:16 So I was just laying there.
00:17 Luckily, my family got some blankets for me and put a pillow under my head so I wasn't
00:22 cold, but the pain was very immense.
00:25 The ambulance union says a paramedic shortage and a worsening ramping problem is to blame.
00:31 At half past four yesterday afternoon, nine of the 18 ambulances in the state's south
00:37 were ramped at the Royal Hobart Hospital.
00:39 Another nine were on jobs.
00:41 The union says that left no ambulances available to respond to an emergency.
00:46 It was an unsafe time for all Tasmanians and just shows how dire our health system is.
00:52 As I say, we're continuing to employ more paramedics to build more facilities to deliver
00:58 better health care right around Tasmania.
01:01 The health department says demand for ambulances increases during the summer holiday period
01:06 and it's working on a new policy to let paramedics hand over their patients to hospital staff
01:11 within an hour of arriving.
01:13 But doctors say that can only work if emergency beds aren't already full.
01:18 The simple challenge you have at the moment is that when there is no capacity to accept
01:21 those patients, effectively you're transferring that risk from the ambulance service to the
01:26 public hospitals to how you provide that care.
01:29 Unions and health stakeholders say emergency department congestion is a complex issue to
01:34 solve.
01:35 They're calling for a funding injection to deliver better GP availability and ensure
01:40 less urgent patients can get care outside of hospitals.
01:45 Let's have an honest conversation about if we're going to fund it and if we're not going
01:49 to fund it, let's tell the public what the public health system is not going to fund
01:52 and what you're going to have to self-fund.
01:53 They say better collaboration will cut wait times for patients like Mr Krasnicki.
01:59 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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