Page 3403 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 11 October 1994
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Mr Berry: Madam Speaker, on a point of order - - -
Mr Humphries: On a point of order, Madam Speaker - - -
MADAM SPEAKER: There is no point of order. I have ruled the question out of order.
Mr Humphries: I am raising a point of order, Madam Speaker.
MADAM SPEAKER: Yes, of course, Mr Humphries.
Mr Humphries: It has long been accepted that it is acceptable in this place to claim that members misrepresent things, but not that they mislead or lie. Mr Kaine said "misrepresent". Given the accepted practice in this place, he should be allowed to have his question answered.
MADAM SPEAKER: I asked Mr Kaine quite clearly to rephrase his question.
Mr Humphries: He did.
Mr Kaine: I did. Madam Speaker, I used the word "misrepresent". I did not talk about misleading.
MADAM SPEAKER: I will allow it.
MR CONNOLLY: I am sure that the reason I would have said that there were 60 beds in paediatrics at that time was that that was the information that I had in front of me from my advisers. As of last week, when I was in the hospital on Tuesday, going through paediatrics, one of the four wings in that unit, in fact, was empty. In September and August we had a very high level of paediatric admissions because of the quite severe outbreak of rotavirus.
Mr Kaine: How many beds are in it? How many beds are in there - 60 or 49?
MR CONNOLLY: That is a good question. As of Tuesday of last week, we in fact had no paediatric patients in that wing; there was no child there needing care; and we had tended to say to nurses, "If you want to take your day off, this is a good day to take your day off", or to send nurses somewhere else. Would we count those beds on Tuesday of last week, when there was no-one in them, and no demand for them, and the nursing staff was not there?
Mr Humphries: What does that have to do with it?
MR CONNOLLY: The nursing staff was available but was redeployed to other duties. It is fairly poor management, I would think, to have the staff standing by empty beds. Would we have counted that wing as beds or not as beds? It gets a little more complex.
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