Page 3017 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 17 October 2007
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MR SPEAKER: Order, Mr Corbell!
MRS BURKE: Mr Moore writes:
Bureaucracy multiplied when the board was closed down—
Fancy that:
cost increased and the quality of service deteriorated.
This is a critical point. Many observers and commentators are now agreeing with this view. We have become excessively bureaucratised in just about every area of government, as Mr Stefaniak pointed out this week, and no more so than in the health system and within the hospital system. You have just left the head of health to flounder. You have just pushed him out there into the front—
MR SPEAKER: Mrs Burke, direct your comments through the chair.
MRS BURKE: whereas a board would allow a range of people. Ultimately the problem is that the government do not want to take responsibility. They do not want to be held accountable. The establishment of a board to oversee public hospital budgets is essential to the delivery of a health system that will deliver on all fronts, both fiscal and medical. But at the forefront should be patient care. Fancy that. We seem now to be so bogged down in process and bureaucracy that patients seem to be the last people we think of. It is essential to have much tighter oversight of exactly where the money is going to ensure openness and accountability, rather than this somewhat opaque system that this government is now adopting.
This bill will emphasise the contributions that could be made by not only medical professionals but other experienced and concerned citizens from every level of the community. Members will be appointed by the minister—perhaps that is what he does not like; perhaps he does not want to have his hands near this—and comprise the following members: a visiting medical officer, a member of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners and a member of the medical training sector.
It will also variously have a member with substantial experience from each of the finance, business and legal sectors, to be appointed by the minister. In addition, it will have a pastoral care worker and a representative of the consumers’ health forum. The Chief Executive Officer of ACT Health will also be a member of the board, although he or she would not be entitled to hold the office of chair. The chair will be appointed by the minister for a period of 12 months and the board members will be appointed for a period of three years.
I agree with my federal Liberal party colleague, Tony Abbott, who sees that in most states and territories public hospitals are run directly by state bureaucracies and report to head office, usually through a convoluted public service hierarchy. As I have said in this place, we have seen every state and territory take an absolutely ham-fisted approach to managing public hospitals. I do not know what it is and I do not know why, but clearly we are coming up with a solution to try and tackle some of the major
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