Page 3762 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 22 November 2006
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I am taking further advice on the staffing levels within the emergency department to make sure that all positions that can be filled are filled, particularly in respect of nurses. I think there are some vacancies for a couple of doctors down there. We need to make sure that we are discharging patients and getting a flow through the hospital. It seems to me, from all the analysis I have looked at over the past week or so—and I have looked very closely at this—that enormous pressure is placed on the emergency department when the rest of the hospital is, in a sense, gridlocked, and that is why staff are feeling under pressure. I acknowledge that pressure and we will do everything we can to make sure that we are alleviating that stress. But it is a high-stress environment. It is, I think, difficult to say that we will be able to address all of their issues but we will certainly be working hard over the next few weeks on the ones around staffing and better flow through the emergency department.
MR SMYTH: Mr Speaker, I ask a supplementary question. Minister, you just informed the Assembly—
MR SPEAKER: Come to the question.
MR SMYTH: that the administration staff went and checked and then cancelled the code yellow.
MR SPEAKER: Come to the question, Mr Smyth.
MR SMYTH: According to the site, they did not come out of their ivory tower.
MR SPEAKER: Order! Mr Smyth, come to the question or I will sit you down.
MR SMYTH: The question is: Minister, did the administration staff check and go to the ER before they cancelled the code yellow, or did they just do it from their ivory tower?
MS GALLAGHER: I will check on that. The way I read the information provided to me was that they had attended the emergency department and, in discussions with staff, overturned it. But I am more than happy to come back and make sure that the answer I give is correct. Certainly, from the information that I recall which I was given on the day, they had attended the department. I am not sure what level of staff that was so I will certainly come back and tell you by the end of question time today.
Economy—management
MS MacDONALD: My question is to the Chief Minister and Treasurer, Mr Stanhope. Could the Chief Minister, in his capacity as minister for economic development, please explain how the chamber of commerce and industry’s latest business expectation survey demonstrates a high level of confidence in the management of the ACT economy by the ACT government?
MR STANHOPE: It is a great pleasure for me to explain the latest results from the ACT and Region Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s business expectation survey of October for the previous quarter. Indeed, it is probably relevant at the outset to
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