Page 4103 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 24 November 1993
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His other very clever approach was the Christmas closures. Instead of a four-week Christmas closure, we go for a six-week Christmas closure. This is a really good way to bring your budget in on track. It is also a good way to increase, quite substantially, your waiting lists, because, if people cannot go into hospital, obviously they stay on the waiting lists. Of course, it also causes very real problems for people like teachers who expect to be able to have minor surgery and procedures done during holiday periods. But we will not worry about those either. We will just go for a substantially longer Christmas closure period. Here we have a Minister who is solving his problems by cutting bed numbers, increasing occupancy that is already critically high, going for long Christmas closure periods, and going for long waiting lists - waiting lists that have increased, as we have already said, 91 per cent since he took over the ministry.
Interestingly, the number of people who were waiting for longer than 12 months in this last quarter, according to this activity report, was 12 per cent. In the same quarter last year, the September quarter of last financial year, the number waiting for longer than 12 months was 11 per cent. It has gone from 11 per cent to 12 per cent. That is not a decrease, the way I look at it, Mr Berry; but obviously you had different mathematics.
Mr De Domenico: And they are his figures.
MRS CARNELL: His figures, his activity reports. So, going from 11 per cent to 12 per cent in Mr Berry's terms is supposedly a decrease. It is interesting that today the nurses had a stop-work meeting. I understand that they have decided to have lightning strikes of two hours' duration, beginning tomorrow, so we are going to have a health system with no VMOs and lightning strikes.
Mr De Domenico: Are they parasitic as well?
MRS CARNELL: Actually, I would like to read what the nurses say about fireman Berry and his tremendous approach to industrial relations. I quote:
Wayne Berry has allowed ACT Health to ignore a recommendation of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission that the directive to change nurses rosters be suspended.
It is no wonder that the VMOs do not trust this approach. They then go on to say:
Wayne Berry's industrial relations style is wreaking havoc on the health system. He must be stopped.
That was said by Colleen Duff, secretary of the ANF. She went on to say:
What skills and qualifications has Wayne Berry to be responsible for something as complex as health?
Mr Deputy Speaker, that is the point of this MPI today. Rosemary Follett has to remove Mr Berry from this portfolio. He cannot cope. She has to put there somebody else who can cope, possibly Mr Connolly. Maybe she has to do it because he just cannot cope. It is obvious that he cannot cope. His budget is still blowing out, he has no VMOs, and his nurses are going on lightning strikes.
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