Page 730 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 12 March 1991
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MR BERRY: Why do you not keep it open in accordance with your promise, Mr Residents Rally person? That is what the Rally stood on. The executive director of clinical services has written, saying that acute and elective services are being gravely compromised by shortages of staff and facilities at Royal Canberra Hospital North and ask that this situation be urgently addressed. There are documented cases of increased morbidity because of this. Mr Humphries, what they are saying - if you have not understood - is that people are dying to get into hospital. This is the crazy situation which has developed under this Minister in the last 15 months. Peoples' lives are being shortened by the inaction of this Government. I will come to more of that in a minute.
Meanwhile, the Minister publicly squabbles with his senior bureaucrats over the budget blow-out and the fact that the redevelopment is out of control. They have said that it is out of control. I do not think the Minister knows. This is all just the tip of the iceberg, Chief Minister. The out of control hospital development will leave this Territory bankrupt. You will wear that. Of course, we will be short of public hospital beds for years. They are not interested in the people of Canberra; they are just looking after their mates. The Minister's plan to increase the number of private beds at the expense of public hospital beds was not well received by the private hospital sector. There are no waiting lists in the private sector; they are in the public sector, and you know that, Mr Humphries. Forcing people into expensive private hospitals will not shorten the waiting lists in the public sector. You told this Assembly that it is all right to send - - -
Mr Kaine: Nobody is forcing them into the private sector.
MR BERRY: You heard this fellow. He told this Assembly that it is all right to send stroke victims home within hours of their attack, without any stabilisation or specialist care. It is all right; that is what he said. You say that it is all right, even when they return less than 24 hours later after suffering their second and more crippling stroke. Is that still all right? That is what your hospital system is delivering, Mr Humphries. That is why you should sack him, Chief Minister.
I know that you would like to sack him and you would like to do him in. You gave him the portfolio to bring him into disrepute within the Liberal Party; there is no doubt about that. It is getting close to the time to do him in, Mr Kaine? But you know that he has a few numbers behind him. We all remember Mr Humphries, one; Mr Kaine, two.
The cutbacks at Jindalee, Mr Humphries, have led to understaffing and the withdrawal of basic services for the frail aged in that nursing home. The great industrial relations coup of the Minister was to force the closing of the kitchens at Woden Valley Hospital, the principal
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