Page 731 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 12 March 1991
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hospital. The patients at Jindalee now say that the hot food is cold and that the cold food is hot. This is the sort of thing that is going on in this system.
Mr Kaine: We cannot satisfy anybody.
MR BERRY: We hear the Chief Minister saying, "We cannot satisfy anybody". The aged are complaining about their food; the fact that it is not getting there cold when it is supposed to, and it is not getting there hot when it is supposed to.
That is the sort of hospital system that is now in operation. Throughout this community there are stories of hardship and suffering caused by this Minister's attacks. What do they achieve? Savings? No. We have budget blow-outs; growing budget blow-outs by today's admissions - growing more and more.
Mr Kaine: You can keep saying it, but it does not make it true.
MR BERRY: It is more and more budget blow-outs.
Mr Kaine: It is wearing a bit thin, Wayne.
MR SPEAKER: Order, Chief Minister!
MR BERRY: Thank you, Mr Speaker. The question that the people of Canberra ask is: Why has he done nothing and why is he allowed to get away with it by his colleagues? I will give you a few more words from what Mr Humphries said in November 1989:
The Minister's reaction to these sorts of problems has been predictable. It has been, first of all, to deny that there is any crisis ...
Of course, we know that there was no crisis. We uncovered this mess and the Minister dropped the ball. There was no crisis. It was the best waiting list that had been seen for many years, and it has now moved upwards by almost 60 per cent. Mr Humphries also said:
secondly, to counter-accuse people who have attacked the health system ...
Rightly so. I accused him of that, which was the correct thing to do because he was doing it on a jelly base. Listen to this. Mr Humphries further said:
Thirdly, he has, quietly, on the side, acted on the complaints.
I got on with the job; that is the big difference between this Minister for Health and the last. Mr Humphries, on his own admission, said that the last one acted. In 15 months Mr Humphries has done nothing. What Mr Humphries was speaking about in 1989 was the hospital budget blow-out.
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