Page 3272 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 13 November 2007
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We have had three health ministers who know very well about the issues I have raised in this place during all that time. One of those was the Chief Minister when he was the health minister; the matter was raised with him. Another was Mr Simon Corbell, and now it is the current health minister, Ms Katy Gallagher. For this government to say that it was the responsibility of the former Liberal administration is a very damning indictment of its inability and ineffectiveness to resolve a situation that does not involve a demarcation dispute.
The same FOI request indicated there has been a significant deterioration in the triage system at the Canberra Hospital emergency department. In Canberra, 80 per cent of people presenting to the emergency department are classified in triage categories 3 and 4. The Stanhope government has acknowledged this, and that there needs to be more work done on it.
The government recently admitted that there are “endemic” management problems in the public system. We think the succession of Labor health ministers are contributing in no small way to the problem; they are part of it. We have had 100 former patients exposed to hepatitis and HIV after the Canberra Hospital discovered a serious breach in the sterilisation of two instruments used to take colon biopsies. We have patients waiting too long for cancer treatment and urgent dental care. In June, we heard that about 40 per cent of cancer patients did not receive radiotherapy in the recommended four weeks. Most recently, we had a complete debacle when the government rammed through its controversial and most unpopular pay parking system. In May this year, it had to scrap the scheme at both public hospitals, after raising parking revenue of $1.209 million. How much did implementation of the scheme cost? $1.745 million—clearly, an administrative failure and an administrative disaster.
Nurses, who are the lifeblood of the system, are stretched beyond reasonable expectations. They are stressed to a point that discourages them from staying in the system and puts them at risk of compromising their high standards of care. In fact, we have heard that unless the system changes many of those people who would come and work back in the system simply will not do so. They put it down to severe problems with management, which I know the Chief Minister has now acknowledged.
In the year to July, with a target of 60 per cent for patients in triage category 3—30 minutes—only 36 per cent were treated within the preferred time, a drop of 23.9 per cent from the target. In category 4—within 60 minutes—there was a decline from a preferred 60 per cent to only 35 per cent, a drop of minus 25 per cent. Category 5—within 120 minutes—had a target of 85 per cent but came in at 67 per cent, a drop of minus 17.9 per cent.
With respect to elective surgery, whilst noting the figure of 9,620 removals from the elective surgery waiting list in 2007-08, this in itself shows just how out of control the elective surgery waiting time has become. That is an enormous number of people to be removed over that period of time. Whilst the minister parades it as some sort of wonderful achievement, which it would be, and has been, for those people who finally got their surgery, I do not think it is anything to really raise the roof on. It just shows how much of a problem the system had become. Median waiting times of 631 days
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