Page 3300 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 12 October 1993
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Mr Humphries: But they are still waiting?
MR BERRY: That is right, but you did not count them that way. They were not in your figures. There is something wrong when I show you the complete picture, but it was all right when you were keeping it a secret.
Members interjected.
MADAM SPEAKER: Order! I believe that Mr Berry has the floor.
MR BERRY: Nineteen minutes to go, boys and girls.
Mr Kaine: And you have not answered the question yet.
MR BERRY: Eighteen-and-a-half. We are telling you now where everybody is on the list, not like it was when Mr Humphries was the Minister.
Maternity Services
MS ELLIS: My question is directed to the Deputy Chief Minister in his capacity as Minister for Health. Is the Minister aware of calls by a Liberal member for the establishment of peer review mechanisms in maternity services? Will the Minister respond to those calls?
MR BERRY: I certainly will. Thank you, Ms Ellis, for the question. Mrs Carnell is wrong again. Her record is clean - 100 per cent wrong. She continues to present the public health system in the community out there as if there is something terribly wrong. She will call for anything. We have heard all sorts of calls for different sorts of referenda and councils - anything that comes to mind on a given day, without really considering the issues.
The maternity section at Woden Valley has ongoing peer review about the level of obstetrician and nursing staff. There are also combined meetings and programs with the obstetrics, paediatrics and neonatal intensive care areas. Each month the obstetricians meet to review trends of practice within their area and to discuss the clinical management of special cases. The Maternal and Neonatal Morbidity and Mortality Committee established on 12 March 1992 by me meets bimonthly. I will say it slowly so that you will understand. It meets bimonthly and is composed of paediatricians, obstetricians and neonatologists. Its purpose is to review obstetric outcome in terms of the result in the health of neonats transferred to a neonatal intensive care unit, and so on.
Mrs Carnell: So you think 26 per cent caesarean births in the ACT is all right?
MR BERRY: What I am saying is that Mrs Carnell calls for peer review as if it is not happening, and it is happening. So she is 100 per cent wrong again and is keeping her record clean. Woden Valley Hospital has received accreditation from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists for training obstetrics and gynaecology from 1994. This accreditation is dependent on ongoing quality assurance and peer review mechanism within the hospital. It is already happening.
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