BED capacity at the Launceston General Hospital's emergency department is set to double next week but questions remain over whether the government can afford to fully staff it.
The $12 million expansion of emergency will see the number of treatment bays increase from 20 to 43.
But yesterday Health Minister Michelle O'Byrne said not all the bays would become operational immediately.
``Should an incident occur whereby we need to fill and support those beds we then would be able to draw on staff to do so,'' Ms O'Byrne said.
Australian Nursing Federation state secretary Neroli Ellis said the LGH did not have the capacity to fully staff the new department.
``It's reliant on the appropriate safe level of staffing therefore they can't open the whole unit up,'' Mrs Ellis said.
``It's still not the optimum size, however it's certainly better than what they have been working in for a long period of time.''
Mrs Ellis said it would not stop the number of patients who were treated in the back of ambulances because they were unable to access a bed at the LGH.
``I've seen the numbers of ambulance ramping, it is almost a daily occurrence,'' she said.
Ms O'Byrne contended the practice was not widespread.
``There hasn't in fact been regular ambulance ramping here at the LGH. There is on occasion within our two major hospitals incidents of ramping,'' she said.
``None of those times are acceptable and (we) work across Tasmania to make sure they do not occur.''
Hospital boss John Kirwan said during peak periods 120 to 140 patients could present to emergency.
``We will staff to the need and the demand and the acuteness rather than staff to the potential and that's quite clearly our current policy.''
He said patients would notice the amount of increased space and privacy due to the expansion.
He said the LGH had a policy of ``trying very hard not to ramp'' even when resources were stretched. ``Sometimes there could be some issues of where there's a couple of ambulances queued but only at very peak periods.''
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