Page 4812 - Week 15 - Thursday, 8 December 1994
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MRS CARNELL: The Health Minister also indicated that the Health Complaints Commissioner had somehow been critical of the Opposition's handling of this whole issue. Madam Speaker, I think it is important, in terms of a personal explanation, to explain actually what did happen in this circumstance. The fact of the matter is that there was an early morning call to a radio station from one of the relatives of the woman involved, suggesting that there had been a transfer. Mr Connolly reacted by disparaging the ambulance officers involved. This caused a medical staff member at Calvary - - -
Mr Connolly: Who was ringing up radio stations, in great glee, saying, "She is dead"? Who did that?
Mr De Domenico: And who denied it, Mr Connolly?
MADAM SPEAKER: Order! Only Mrs Carnell has leave to speak.
MRS CARNELL: We will get to that. These disparaging comments from Mr Connolly about ambulance officers caused a statement to be made by a medical staff member at Calvary Hospital. The media hysteria that followed was more to do with members of Mr Connolly's office making statements like "The woman involved is at home and resting", when she was, in fact, dead, and "You would have a story if the patient had died", when she had actually died. The fact of the matter is that the Opposition never used the name of the woman involved, mainly because it would have been totally inappropriate to do so. The Complaints Commissioner said:
The primary problem was not a lack of resources in the Accident and Emergency Department but a short term lack of available beds in the hospital.
MR CONNOLLY (Attorney-General and Minister for Health): I seek leave to make a statement on the same matter.
MADAM SPEAKER: Please proceed.
MR CONNOLLY: I will not get into this grubby business of who said what to whom, but - - -
Mr Humphries: You were prepared to do it before, in question time.
MR CONNOLLY: All right; I will say on the record that, late one night, we were telephoned by a radio station and told that a staff member of the Opposition had rung the radio station, spreading it about that the woman had died. So, who is playing grubby politics? It was a shameful act by the Opposition. I would, however, repeat the statement by the Health Complaints Commissioner that I read previously. He was not saying that the primary problem was a lack of beds. He made this point about the situation in a well-managed hospital system:
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