Data Exposes Chronic Understaffing of the Health System

MEDIA DOORSTOP

WHERE: Charles Hotel Gardens, Opposite Launceston General Hospital (LGH)
WHEN: Thursday 10 September, 2026
TIME: 10.30am

The Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation Tasmanian Branch continues to bargain in good faith for a replacement Enterprise Agreement for Tasmanian nurses and midwives working in the Tasmanian Health Service.

However, during bargaining preparation, the ANMF has discovered alarming data that clearly shows the chronic understaffing of the Tasmanian Health Service, while nurses and midwives report increasing rates of burnout and moral injury.

“The ANMF has discovered that over the last 6-9 months, over 7,674 nursing and midwifery shifts have not been filled,” ANMF Tasmanian Branch Secretary Emily Shepherd said.

“These are shifts which according to mutually agreed staffing profiles are the required minimum to ensure staff and patient safety. This equates to over 61,395 nursing hours.”

Ms Shepherd said that while Tasmania’s hospitals continue to experience increased capacity and demand, along with critical capacity alerts, the data the ANMF has discovered through Right to Information indicates that hospitals are only being staffed to 94% capacity.

“When the Government is highlighting the efforts to recruit more nurses and midwives, the existing workforce are experiencing burnout and exhaustion, propping up a health system that is working overtime without even the minimum required staffing levels.

“This just results in a revolving door recruitment and subsequent exits, exits for nurses and midwives that are also at times career destroying.

“In reality, what this equates to is at the Royal Hobart Hospital (RHH) the hospital is funded to 471 beds but staffed for only 433, meaning the shortfall is picked up by existing part-time nurses or through double shifts and overtime – to the tune of 4,844 shifts not being staffed.

“Nurses and midwives are not only grappling with a system that cannot meet demand, increasing violence and aggression as well understaffing, but they are bearing the moral injury from all of these factors.”

Ms Shepherd said at the LGH and RHH alone, nurses and midwives worked over 10,000 double shifts in 2025, with data unclear in the North-West, and it is expected that this number will be exceeded in 2026.

“We cannot continue to burn out experienced and dedicated nurses and midwives by expecting them to deliver quality patient care with inadequate resources.”

Ms Shepherd said the ANMF continues to call on the Government to staff, value and protect Tasmanian nurses and midwives through the current public sector negotiations but importantly ensure that the Tasmanian Health System can deliver safe and quality care.

“The health system and its hard-working nurses and midwives are crumbling and the Government must ensure action is taken before the crisis becomes unmanageable.”

-End-

Media contact:
Emily Shepherd, ANMF Tasmanian Branch Secretary
Mobile: 0400 884 021
Email: Emily.Shepherd@anmftas.org.au