Health system in 'perpetual crisis' demands inquiry, doctors say

An independent commission of inquiry into Tasmania's health system is needed to get to the bottom of system-wide problems and find evidence-based solutions, doctors say.

"We want to know why after so many reviews, after so much money, after so many good people working extraordinarily hard to fix our health system, why are we still in a state of perpetual crisis," the Australian Medical Association's (AMA) Tasmanian branch president Meg Creely said today.

Dr Creely said a holistic inquiry was needed so that each problem was not looked at in isolation.

"When we have a blockage in our ED [emergency department], that's related to the sub-acute beds; when we have ambulance ramping, that's related to our workforce," she said.

"These problems are connected and we have to stop looking at them one problem at a time."

The AMA's call comes after a man died shortly after arriving at the Royal Hobart Hospital (RHH) last week.

The man's family had been forced to drive him there because no ambulances were available.

Dr Creely said that incident, which is being investigated by the health department, along with "sustained pressure" across emergency departments, ambulance services and growing waitlists brought the need for independent examination into sharp focus.

It comes as the state government looks to cut $700 million out of the health department, as part of the Treasurer's Operational Efficiencies program.

Inquiry 'wouldn't help a single Tasmanian', health minister says 

However, Health Minister Bridget Archer dismissed the proposal, saying a commission of inquiry (COI) "would not help a single Tasmanian patient".

"A COI would cost upwards of $30 million and take years to complete, all while replicating the work of existing inquiries, including one currently underway through the Legislative Council," Ms Archer said in a statement.

"The AMA's proposal also has no detail behind it, with no terms of reference and seemingly no idea what actual problem they are trying to solve."

Dr Creely said the Legislative Council inquiry into the financial and operational performance of the Department of Health was doing valuable work, but the AMA's proposed inquiry was much broader in focus.

"We very much think that the evidence [the Legislative Council committee has] currently gathered should inform any future inquiry," she said.

Dr Creely said there would be a cost for a large inquiry, but it paled compared to the issue it was trying to fix. 

She said the state was spending $10 million a day on health.

Performance steadily getting worse

A range of metrics for Tasmania's health system have steadily worsened in recent years.

More than 9,500 people currently sit on the elective surgery waitlist.

Of those, fewer than two-thirds are seen on time, while those admitted spend an average of about six months longer than the clinically recommended time frame.

Another 78,000 Tasmanians are on the outpatient appointment waiting list.

The average response time in 2024–25 for an ambulance was 14.9 minutes.

A policy mandating the offload of patients from ambulances to the emergency department within 60 minutes has been implemented to get paramedics back onto the road sooner.

However, figures provided to the ABC in 2025 found that since the policy mandate, there had been no change in ambulance response times.

Federal issues adding to state problems

Ms Archer has repeatedly blamed the federal government for some of the state's hospital problems, including bed block from hospital patients waiting for federally provided aged care placements.

In a statement last month, she said there was a national crisis with more than 3,600 aged care patients across Australia stranded in public hospitals.

"In Tasmania, the number of patients stranded in aged care alone has nearly doubled in the past two years, from 41 to 78 patients," Ms Archer said.

Federal Health Minister Mark Butler last week said the government had eased hospital pressure through increased funding, more aged care beds, expanded bulk billing and Urgent Care Clinics.

"There are real pressures facing the aged care system right now, and we continue to work with states and territories in good faith,"

he said.

Dr Creely said a state commission of inquiry could not compel the federal government to take part.

"But whether they choose to or not shouldn't stop us from trying to fix our own house and look after the patients and the people within our state," she said.

The acting director of the Royal Hobart Hospital's emergency department said there needed to be a better understanding of what was happening in EDs.

Dr Byron Booth, who joined the AMA in calling for a wider inquiry, said there were "large numbers of people in the ED who don't need to be there".

"That's really not the truth of what we're seeing — we're seeing elderly people who are not able to go to their homes, who don't have a nursing home to go to and need admission to our hospital."

AMA immediate past president Michael Lumsden-Steel said an inquiry should look at the state's health infrastructure requirements.

"Every other state is in the process of building new hospitals,"

he said.

"In Tasmania, we're seeing piecemeal renovations of emergency departments, hospital wards and bolt-on processes."