{"id":40819,"date":"2026-06-29T13:02:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T13:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/40819\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T13:02:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T13:02:11","slug":"brother-tells-of-familys-unimaginable-pain-after-doctors-death-in-tasmania","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/40819\/","title":{"rendered":"Brother tells of family’s ‘unimaginable pain’ after doctor’s death in Tasmania"},"content":{"rendered":"

The brother of a doctor who died following a car crash in southern Tasmania says his family is living through “unimaginable pain”.<\/p>\n

Artyom Avetisyan, a cardiothoracic surgery registrar at the Royal Hobart Hospital (RHH), died in a single-vehicle car crash at Pontville in southern Tasmania on June 12.<\/p>\n

The 42-year-old is being remembered as a kind and compassionate colleague.<\/p>\n

His brother, Artak Avetisyan, said Dr Avetisyan “devoted his life to helping others”.<\/p>\n

“He was always there for our family, supporting us in every way he could, and we were endlessly proud of him,” Mr Avetisyan said.<\/p>\n

“My parents and I are living through unimaginable pain, and this loss has been devastating for all of us.<\/p>\n

“Artyom was Armenian, and now we face the heartbreaking responsibility of bringing him home to his homeland so he can be laid to rest with his family.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Artyom Avetisyan worked for nearly three years with the Tasmanian Department of Health, his brother says. (LinkedIn)<\/p>\n

Dr Avetisyan was driving back to Hobart after working at the Launceston General Hospital when he was involved in a single-vehicle crash on the Midland Highway about 10:40pm.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He was the only person in the car.<\/p>\n

“On the day of the accident, he was driving back from Launceston General Hospital to Royal Hobart Hospital to finish his work,” Mr Avetisyan said.<\/p>\n

“During our conversations in the last week before the crash, he sounded extremely exhausted.<\/p>\n

“He spoke very little and kept saying that he just wanted to sleep and get some rest.”<\/p>\n

Mr Avetisyan said his brother had worked for almost three years with the Tasmanian Health Department, first at the Mersey Community Hospital at Latrobe, then at the RHH.<\/p>\n

He had been living in Australia since 2016.<\/p>\n

Loading Instagram content<\/p>\n

Dr Avetisyan’s death has led to calls for the Health Department to review its fatigue policy.<\/p>\n

RHH Medical Staff Association chair Frank Nicklason said many doctors who worked in the south of the state were required to travel to the north and north-west to support hospitals there.<\/p>\n

Dr Nicklason said it was “a real issue for us”.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Artyom Avetisyan is being remembered as someone who “devoted his life to helping others”. (LinkedIn)<\/p>\n

Australian Medical Association Tasmanian branch president Michael Lumsden-Steel said there was a question of what fatigue management processes the department had in place, and if they were being adhered to.<\/p>\n

The Health Department has said it had fatigue management policies in place, which a spokesperson said included providing “advice and assistance for managing fatigue to ensure it does not contribute to health and safety risks for employees or in departmental workplaces”.<\/p>\n

The spokesperson said the department also reviewed the policies this year in consultation with staff.<\/p>\n

“The department is collating the feedback to inform the next stage of development,” they said.<\/p>\n

Dr Avetisyan’s death is being investigated by the coroner.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Artak Avetisyan says his brother previously worked as a medical officer at Tasmania’s Mersey Community Hospital. (ABC News: Hayden Smith)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The brother of a doctor who died following a car crash in southern Tasmania says his family is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40820,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[32481,22,21,32485,1991,32710,39,32484,21026,32483,14338,21701,32480,23327],"class_list":["post-40819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-artyom-avetisyan","tag-au","tag-austrlia","tag-cardiothoracic","tag-crash","tag-fatigue","tag-hospital","tag-launceston-general-hospital","tag-medicine","tag-pontville","tag-rhh","tag-royal-hobart-hospital","tag-surgeon","tag-workplace"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40819","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=40819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40819\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}