Page 3340 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 14 November 2007
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Yes, there are challenges, yes, there are issues and, yes, in a hospital system that deals with chronically ill people bad and sad things will happen. The challenge is to make sure that they happen as least often as possible and to make sure that when they do happen the lessons are learnt and improvements are made. That is what this government is committed to. That is our record on improving services. We have delivered the money, we are delivering the management and we are delivering the improvements. We will continue to take that approach.
MR MULCAHY (Molonglo) (11.54): We have just heard Mr Corbell and, earlier, the Minister for Health harp on about the fact that there is no real need for an inquiry; it will not achieve anything. The question remains to be asked: if it will not achieve anything, why are things not improving to a level that the public would expect?
Yesterday we spoke on management problems in the ACT public hospitals. These are serious issues that have been highlighted by a report of the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, and I cited a number of facts in my address to the Assembly. In particular, I remind members that the report notes that, despite the very high cost, waiting times in public hospitals in Canberra are the highest in the country. Those are not the opposition’s words but the words of the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.
On almost every measure of waiting times available in the report the ACT performs the poorest out of every Australian jurisdiction. We have the highest median waiting time for elective surgery, the highest proportion of patients waiting for more than a year for elective surgery and the lowest proportion of patients receiving timely treatment in emergency surgery. We have gone through these figures time and time again but still this government wants to turn a blind eye to this and say, “Life is wonderful in the Canberra public hospital system.” The problems have been repeatedly drawn to the attention of this government. However, it appears that little or nothing has been done to fix them.
Whilst the reports of the AIHW and the evidence that trickles into the Assembly on these matters from various constituents raise serious concerns, they are not sufficient to identify the specific managerial problems that are leading to poor performance. For that reason, Mr Stefaniak’s proposal for an inquiry of this nature is most appropriate. You cannot go on year in and year out running a hospital system that is failing to perform to national standards and is costing vastly more to operate than it ought when compared on equivalency basis with other jurisdictions and to say that you do not want to have it looked at. Of course you do not want it looked at because it is politically very, very embarrassing.
Mr Corbell was shunted out of the role of health. He could not manage the area. Ms Gallagher is clearly struggling to manage the role of health on the occasions we see her in this chamber. Obviously we need to get to the bottom of what are the fundamental issues with this health administration.
I refer to another report. I do not just rely on the AIHW, although I think their work is credible. The Minister for Health says that she wants some evidence of the problems.
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