Accident and Emergency
TO THE staff at accident and emergency, I have only this to say, you are amazing and you deserve better. I arrived at A&E at 10am. The waiting room was full. My daughter was being examined. They wanted to admit her to Ward 5, but there were no beds.
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Once they started the intravenous drip, my daughter who was in a lot of pain, had to go back out to the waiting room because there were no beds in A&E. The stream of ambulances and patients was never-ending. As the day went on there were more and more patients with drips in the waiting room.
Hourly obs were being done in the waiting room. At one stage they ran out of wheelchairs to move patients. The pressure on the staff must have been horrendous,yet there seemed to be a calm proficient management of what seemed to me absolute chaos.
There were full vomit bags under two chairs that I noticed. My daughter was finally in a bed at around 7.30pm. I left the hospital at around 10pm. The waiting room at A&E was still as full as it was at 10am. I left both physically and emotionally drained by just having to observe.
My questions to our government are many. Why are there no beds in Ward 5? What are the services missing in the community that pushes our hospital to a breaking point? Do we really need a football team, when our dedicated doctors and nurses have to work under such conditions, not to mention the suffering patients? Where are our government's priorities and duty of care, to patients and staff?
To the staff at the LGH, I honour your commitment, dedication and I thank you. To our government, you should be ashamed.
Ella Miller, Lanena.
A full-time jobs crisis
TASMANIA shed 5600 full time jobs over the last year. Tasmania now has a full-time jobs crisis and the Morrison government has made a bad situation worse with more cuts.
The campaign Peter Gutwein and Senator Jonathon Duniam launched last year to attract more public service jobs to Tasmania has been an absolute failure.
Clearly they have no influence over Scott Morrison.
More federal public service jobs are threatened in Tasmania by the Liberals' planned privatisation of visa processing.
Minister Dutton's plans would see 100 or more public service jobs disappear in Hobart and 2000 nationally.
Privatisation is entirely about profit, it costs public sector jobs and in the case of visa processing it could also risk Australia's security.
The latest jobs figures also reveal a shocking and growing trend of cutbacks to secure jobs in regional areas of Tasmania.
The Morrison government must demonstrate a commitment to regional communities like North and North-West Tasmania which are already suffering from horrifically high levels of unemployment and under-employment.
Senator Helen Polley, Labor Senator for Tasmania.
Op Shop with a happy vibe
REGARDING Laurelle Atkinson, St Helens (The Examiner, September 28). There are in fact two op shops located in the St Helens area and I have the great privilege of managing the one located at St Helens Neighbourhood House. It is true that the other op shop has recently undergone some changes.
Research tells us that change can be challenging, by its very nature it takes us out of our comfort zone. My understanding is that volunteers in other op shop are very proud of their new space, rightly so. Like all volunteers I believe they are working hard to make a positive difference in their community.
For example, our op shop is staffed by a wonderful team of dedicated, attentive and caring volunteers who make the shop a vibrant happy space for everyone.
Daily they tirelessly sift through huge amounts of donated items to display at affordable prices, bargains such as "fill a bag for only $5". To demonstrate further that not all op shops are a money-making venture, it is worth mentioning that every dollar we receive through sales is put back into our community.
Funds are distributed to support local community groups and organisations purchase essential equipment and resources.
Over the years we have supported Riding for Disabled, Netball, Athletic, Soccer and Footy Clubs, SES and local Hospital Auxiliary, to name just a few. So, to end on a positive note donating to, and purchasing from, op shops can truly be the gift that keeps on giving.
Trish O'Duffy Manager, St Helens Neighbourhood House.
National Trust Sell Off
NATIONAL Trust Tasmania is auctioning items from their house museums through Tullochs Auctions online.
There are between 50-100 items in their showroom in Launceston. Have these items been deregistered in the correct way?
Some, maybe all, would have been donated to the Trust. Have the owners been notified? This auction finishes Wednesday at 6 pm.
Sue McClarron, Invermay.
Government cuts
HERE we go again, another round of cuts from this government who is forever patting itself on the back for their economic management. The major cut to health, already suffering dying pangs. Looking at the LGH there is a large, new appendage adorning the side.
Apparently it is a new extension to the paediatric unit. Then we have the bedeviled RHH which may be finished by the end of the century.
Should all go to plan, even if there was money in the honey pot, just where are the doctors and nurses coming from? We can't attract them now and with the cuts our esteemed treasurer wants there won't be money for salaries.
I guess they just build these edifices just so that they can stand there,look good and open it and we voters think that they are doing something for their big bucks.
Maybe they could get rid of their minders or, even better, just make themselves redundant.
Glennis Sleurink, Launceston.
