LGH Nurses at Breaking Point as Hospital Operates in Critical Overcapacity: “This Is Not Safe”

The Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (ANMF) Tasmanian Branch is again raising the alarm as Launceston General Hospital (LGH) Emergency Department (ED) nurses report catastrophic overcrowding and dangerously inadequate staffing levels,  conditions they say are unsustainable, unsafe, and placing patients at real risk.

Overnight from Monday to Tuesday (March 2-3), ANMF members working in the LGH ED reported:

• 41 admitted patients in the ED
• Safe capacity for only 33 clinical spaces/cubicles
• 64 total patients in the ED, with a further 8 patients in EMU
• Bed Space 15, previously decommissioned, now holding 2 patients in chairs
• Bed Space 33 double‑bunked with 2 patients (should only hold one)
• 3 patients in the airlock (no oxygen or suction in these spaces with direct line of site to ambulances unloading patients out of ambulances)
• Ramped patients and offloaded patients in the corridor
• Over 17 patients in the waiting room
• Average length of stay for some patients in the department greater than 40hrs
• With 3 medical emergencies and active resuscitation at time of report to ANMF.
• 25 nurses rostered, when 28 are required just to safely staff.

These reports continue a pattern of relentless overcapacity that has now become the hospital’s “normal operating mode.”

ANMF Branch Secretary Emily Shepherd said the crisis is no longer containable.

“Nurses are doing everything humanly possible – but this level of overcrowding and understaffing is not sustainable,” Ms Shepherd said. “It is unsafe for patients and it is unsafe for staff. It doesn’t matter how you spin it, this is just an unacceptable situation for the Northern Tasmanian Community.”

The ED currently has 35 full-time equivalent (FTE) nursing vacancies, leaving the remaining workforce stretched beyond safe limits.

Compounding these shortages is an excessive level of sick leave, driven by:

• Carer’s leave
• Bereavement leave
• Ongoing burnout and moral distress

Nurses are physically and emotionally exhausted, operating in a crisis environment every day, with no reprieve, witnessed by the ANMF today and yesterday as we went to support our members in their workplace.

“Our members aren’t taking leave because they want time off, they’re taking leave because they are breaking,” Ms Shepherd said.

Actions taken by other unions in response to their own workplace issues have highlighted just how fragile and under‑resourced system has become. When basic supplies, stock ordering, and essential support duties stop because the Government has failed to plan for or cover these roles, it is nurses – yet again – left holding the risk.

“This crisis is not caused by union action; it is caused by a Government that refuses to negotiate a fair agreement and fix the conditions driving multiple sectors to take a stand.

“Instead of addressing these systemic failures, the Department continues to focus on targets, percentages and trying to spin the unsafe and unsustainable conditions to be something other than what they truly are inside the hospital.”

The ANMF is currently being pushed into the Tasmanian Industrial Commission, where the Department intends to argue that enforcing the Transfer of Care Protocol –  intended to protect ambos and ED staff – is unsafe.

“The ANMF is being forced into Arbitration to simply argue that ToC is NOT safe, when the evidence is clear.

“Unfortunately, the events of March 2-3 are not one-offs. They are the new business as usual in the ED.

Ms Shepherd said this position defies logic.

“The Government claims the Transfer of Care Protocol is ‘working’. They might be meeting their self‑imposed percentage targets, but they are absolutely not doing it safely.

“Transferring patients from ambulances into an ED already overflowing with 64+ people, double‑bunked cubicles, patients in chairs, corridors, and airlocks is clearly not safe. Our members see the reality every day.”

Mass Member Meeting: 4 March

The ANMF will hold a mass member meeting on Wednesday 4 March 2026, originally convened to discuss the upcoming Public Sector Enterprise Agreement.

Given the escalation of the crisis, members will also be asked to provide:

• Direction on urgent safety actions,
• Mandates for collective action to protect staff and patients,
• Strategies for dealing with the entrenched overcapacity,
• Clear expectations for immediate Departmental intervention.

“The system is failing. Nurses are being left to carry an impossible burden. They cannot continue like this, and they will not be ignored any longer,” Ms Shepherd said. 

Immediate Action Required

Ms Shepherd said the ANMF is calling for urgent measures including:

• Rapid recruitment to fill the 35 FTE vacancies, that ALL EDs statewide are staffed to their minimum safe staffing levels.
• Additional staffing is immediately implemented to resource offload, corridoring, waiting room admissions, transfers to wards, transfer to radiology etc.
• ANUMs are rostered and funded supernumerary
• Ratios are implemented in all EDs, and hospital wards/units and enforced
• Emergency staffing support to stabilise the ED workforce, including immediately implementation of the market allowance for all existing and vacant roles. (previously agreed by the Secretary and not signed off)
• Patients are transferred/offloaded on clinical priority NOT at direction of non-clinical executive
• Implementation of medi hotels
• District Hospitals staffed with Ratios to their full capacity, including supernumerary ANUMs, to assist in transfer of non-urgent patients in the hospital to relieve bed pressure
• A credible plan to end chronic bed block and ramping
• Enforceable safety thresholds preventing the ED from operating above capacity
• Transparent reporting of true patient numbers and staffing

“This crisis is no longer theoretical, it is unfolding in real time, and nurses fear that without decisive action, preventable harm is inevitable.”