{"id":40187,"date":"2026-06-28T20:48:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T20:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/40187\/"},"modified":"2026-06-28T20:48:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T20:48:09","slug":"calls-for-health-department-to-review-fatigue-policy-after-tasmanian-doctor-dies-in-car-crash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/40187\/","title":{"rendered":"Calls for Health Department to review fatigue policy after Tasmanian doctor dies in car crash"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are calls for Tasmania’s Department of Health to examine its fatigue management policies after a doctor died on the state’s roads.<\/p>\n

Artyom Avetisyan, a cardiothoracic surgery registrar at the Royal Hobart Hospital, has been remembered by hospital staff as a kind and compassionate colleague who will be “greatly missed”.<\/p>\n

Tasmania Police said a 42-year-old died while travelling south on the Midland Highway at Pontville in a single vehicle crash at 10:40pm on June 12.<\/p>\n

Royal Hobart Hospital Medical Staff Association chair Frank Nicklason said Dr Avetisyan was known as a “hardworking” and “very well-respected doctor”.<\/p>\n

\"Dr<\/p>\n

Frank Nicklason says fatigue can be an issue for doctors when they travel. (ABC News)<\/p>\n

Dr Nicklason said he understood Dr Avetisyan was driving home to Hobart after finishing a shift in Launceston when he crashed.<\/p>\n

“It seems quite probable that fatigue was a part of that,” Dr Nicklason said.<\/p>\n

He said it was common for medical staff to travel around the state to see patients.<\/p>\n

“A lot of doctors who work in the south also have to travel to the north to support northern hospitals,” he said.<\/p>\n

“This is a real issue for us.”<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

Tasmanian doctors say it is common to travel to other hospitals in the state. (ABC News: Jake Grant)<\/p>\n

Once a month, Dr Nicklason spends a few days working at the Mersey Community Hospital in the north-west and at the Launceston General Hospital.<\/p>\n

“I would tend to get back to Hobart about 9 o’clock in the evening,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I’m very, very aware of the issues of fatigue.”<\/p>\n

Death a ‘tragedy’, medical association says<\/p>\n

Allan Beswick is with the intensive care unit at the Royal Hobart Hospital, where he worked alongside Dr Avetisyan.<\/p>\n

“No matter what the time, day or night, he was always the same friendly, collegial person,” Dr Beswick said.<\/p>\n

“He’s one of just three cardiothoracic registrars in the state, so his loss is a big loss,” he said.<\/p>\n

Dr Beswick said the cardiothoracic team was “always busy”.<\/p>\n

“The hospital and the teams work very hard, but they also work hard to try and make sure that the rostering is safe,” he said.<\/p>\n

“The nature of the accident being at the end of a long day, the end of a long drive, of course makes everyone concerned about the element of fatigue involved in this.”<\/p>\n

\"Man<\/p>\n

Michael Lumsden-Steel says it is hard for doctors to say “no” when patient outcomes depend on their work. (ABC News: Ebony ten Broeke)<\/p>\n

Tasmanian branch president of the Australian Medical Association Michael Lumsden-Steel said Dr Avetisyan was a “loved, valued, respected member of the cardiothoracic team” who would be missed by his colleagues.<\/p>\n

“They’re grieving, they’re gutted, they’re going through all the emotions of having lost a highly valued colleague,” he said.<\/p>\n

The circumstances surrounding the crash will be a matter for the coroner, but Dr Lumsden-Steel said doctors were often “bad at saying no” due to the consequences for patients.<\/p>\n

“It’s the doctors that are carrying the weight of making the decision: ‘If I cancel this list, that means that someone else is going to be delayed even further for an operation,'” he said.<\/p>\n

“The pipeline is not moving efficiently, we’ve got patients suffering and waiting, and I think this is something that’s always a burden that doctors dealing in high acuity areas are carrying.”<\/p>\n

Dr Lumsden-Steel said there was a question of what fatigue management processes the health department had in place, and if they were being adhered to.<\/p>\n

“We’ll need to look at what we can do better, because it’s just a tragedy to lose a colleague that’s driving back late, caring for patients, providing an outreach service up the north of the state,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Undoubtedly, we’ll need to look at the fatigue around this.”<\/p>\n

\"Exteriors<\/p>\n

It is understood Dr Avetisyan was driving home from Launceston to Hobart the day of the crash. (ABC News: Luke Bowden)<\/p>\n

The Department of Health said it had fatigue management policies in place, which it reviewed this year in consultation with staff.<\/p>\n

“These provide advice and assistance for managing fatigue to ensure it does not contribute to health and safety risks for employees or in departmental workplaces,” a spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

“The department also provides advice and guidance to staff on managing fatigue through internal websites, dedicated information resources and referral pathways to a dedicated Work Health and Safety team.<\/p>\n

“Staff consultation on fatigue management procedures was undertaken in early 2026 and the department is collating the feedback to inform the next stage of development.”<\/p>\n

Fatigue management crucial for driving and shift work<\/p>\n

Tasmanian Foundation for Occupational Medicine president Peter Sharman said Dr Avetisyan’s death was a tragedy.<\/p>\n

He said organisational fatigue management policies were particularly important for jobs involving critical decision making, driving and shift work \u2014 all factors that applied to doctors.<\/p>\n

“You need to have an approach to manage fatigue risk in your organisation,” Dr Sharman said.<\/p>\n

“Some organisations have in place policies that limit the amount of driving you’re allowed to do and limit the amount of time you spend working.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are calls for Tasmania’s Department of Health to examine its fatigue management policies after a doctor died…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40188,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[32481,22,21,32485,1991,18624,32484,18626,32482,32483,21701,32480],"class_list":["post-40187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-artyom-avetisyan","tag-au","tag-austrlia","tag-cardiothoracic","tag-crash","tag-doctor","tag-launceston-general-hospital","tag-lgh","tag-midland-highway","tag-pontville","tag-royal-hobart-hospital","tag-surgeon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40187\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}