Page 2960 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 16 October 2007
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governments seem to have a peculiar ability to be able to pour money down the drain and then blame everyone else for their incompetence. The people of Canberra, for example, were promised a $15 million robotic surgical facility at Canberra Hospital as part of a pre-election promise in 2004. Where is that? That was going to save the world. That was going to improve systems like there were no tomorrows. But the people of Canberra have simply been let down on that.
I am just wondering how many people came to Canberra on the basis of that announcement, because Mr Corbell lauded that. He said, “Come and learn on state-of-the-art equipment in a well-resourced hospital where the government provides funding to support its development and, therefore, your development as a health care professional.” I am very concerned to see that that has not eventuated, and I have heard—and if I get the evidence I will give it to the health minister or the Chief Minister—of a doctor that came here on the basis of that announcement and reports to me that it still has not been implemented. Just how many health professionals has the Stanhope government wrongly enticed here on a false promise?
Last month the federal government announced it will invest $170 million additional funds over five years to create 25 Australian hospital nursing schools. This is a positive move to provide additional training opportunities for enrolled nurses in the ACT. Put plainly and simply, it is critical that the government urgently address the key areas of management and the systemic issues. We have had this little directive from the Chief Minister this afternoon for those that did not know what systemic issues were—we do now. I thank him for that. It is about the system, of course, and we knew that full well. So we need to look at management and systems and we need to look at staffing levels and morale.
We also need to touch on—which we have not said much about before, but I have talked about it today—cleaning standards and infection control at the hospital. My understanding is that we have the highest level of MRSA in Australia at the Canberra Hospital, and that is a concern. I know it is a concern to the profession. I know it is a concern to Professor Collignon. I am also concerned about the day-to-day cleaning of the hospital. We cannot have things like this happening. As a government, as a legislator, that is simply not right. We have to be able to put those things right. We also need to look again—and Mr Corbell has just made an announcement about it—at waiting times in the emergency department. We also need to look at elective surgery. There are a raft of things, but these things seem to have just been building and building and building, with the government giving nothing but rhetoric. We have heard lots of things and had lots of plans, but we are not seeing that really being turned into action.
Mr Speaker, I will finish there, but I would just urge the government really now just to get down to it and genuinely talk to those people on the front line, not through their groups or advocacies but face to face with people who are there day in, day out, who are seeing the patients firsthand. It is no good getting second and third-hand information. I am imploring the government to take this MPI seriously this afternoon, and I welcome all the comments that Mr Mulcahy has made as well. It is a serious matter and it is time that this government really did start taking health more seriously, rather than giving some sort of flim-flam overview of, “Aren’t we wonderful—this is
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