Page 4539 - Week 15 - Thursday, 22 November 1990
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heard that the people of the ACT have rejected what you are on about in schools and hospitals. It is about time you sacked this Minister, because this Minister is responsible for the vandalism in our hospitals and schools.
Another matter that was discussed in the Estimates Committee was the high cost of advertising contained in the health program. Mr Humphries said something about the major difficulties in the hospital being related to his failure to recruit nurses. I am not surprised, with the dodgy advertising that has been going on. It has even been claimed in the department's advertising that there could be a career at the Royal Canberra Hospital - a nice, long, warm career at the Royal Canberra Hospital which is due to shut down in 1991. You cannot fool the people for too long. They are a wake-up to you. The fact of the matter is that there would be no career for those nurses if they were to be recruited. One of the facts of the matter is that a senior manager - - -
Mr Humphries: Absolute rubbish!
MR BERRY: You tell me what career will be going on at Royal Canberra Hospital after 1991 in the areas of surgery.
Mr Humphries: At Royal Canberra Hospital South there will be plenty of careers for them.
MR BERRY: I mean Royal Canberra Hospital on the Acton Peninsula. People are a wake-up to that dodgy name change too. The fact of the matter is that the advertisement was for the hospital on the Acton site, and you fibbed to the people of Australia. That is why nurses will not come here. That sort of advertising is deliberately misleading - and that is why morale is low amongst the workers in the system.
What is most disappointing is that, even when the inaccuracies of the advertisement were pointed out to a senior manager, he refused to accept that it was inaccurate. One of the little things that were said in the advertisement was, "Royal Canberra Hospital is closely located to the centre of the city of Canberra, merely a five-minute walk" away. I tell you what: you could not ride that far on a pushbike in five minutes, let alone idly walk across.
Mr Humphries: This really damns the Government, does it not? We had better resign, Trevor.
MR BERRY: What does damn the Government is the fact that they have failed. The Government has failed in its recruitment, not only in the hospital system but also in the Ambulance Service, where the ambulances lie idle because the Government is so incompetent that it cannot recruit sufficient staff to provide the services to the people of the Territory which are paid for by a mandatory
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