Page 2302 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 29 August 2007
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supplies or equipment. Also, infection control protocols are in place and being followed at both public hospitals. The case covered by Stateline has been reviewed clinically and has been approved in terms of the protocols that were followed. I do not really want go into it because of the patient involved, but it is not uncommon for patients to be cared for in this way considering that public hospitals are not built with single rooms everywhere. In fact, VRE is quite—
Mrs Burke: Collignon is wrong then, is he?
MS GALLAGHER: Professor Collignon had a look at this case, Mrs Burke. Inasmuch as he is the head of infectious diseases at the hospital, perhaps you will take his advice if you do not take mine. Professor Collignon says that he would like everyone nursed in single rooms in public hospitals; that is the gold treatment. But that is not the way our hospitals have been built. If someone with VRE needs day surgery, I am afraid they are going to have to be nursed in the day surgery unit—and nursed in accordance with the protocols that can be followed, which is what they were. VRE is quite common with, say, patients who have renal dialysis. We do not nurse them in private rooms. VRE is common in the intensive care unit; there are no private rooms in the intensive care unit. It is not uncommon not to nurse patients in isolated rooms, because that is not the way the hospital has been built.
The amendment I have moved notes that ACT Health reports publicly on a range of performance measures, which Mrs Burke wants me to table around infection control and public patient safety. For her information, we do table this quarterly. I encourage her to read it, because it has all the information she is seeking.
All ACT staff are trained in the use of a program we have in place at the hospital called RiskMan and are required to report against that. It is a web-based system. Staff use it—they use it all the time and are required to use it. That has followed from the huge change that we have had around patient safety in the hospital since early 2000. All issues raised by staff have been investigated by ACT Health—and, if they have been raised with me, by me—and looked into in a timely fashion.
The final part of the amendment notes, with regret, the misinformation campaign being run by Mrs Burke—
Mrs Burke: Prove it is misinformation.
MS GALLAGHER: who is continuously talking down the ACT public health system—
Mrs Burke: Prove it.
MS GALLAGHER: and the health professionals that work within it.
Mrs Burke: You know better than that.
MS GALLAGHER: Mr Speaker, if I could have the opportunity to use my time here without interjection—
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