Page 3346 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 14 November 2007
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reactive, and governments do have a tendency to be very, very reactive. They need to be a lot more proactive. This motion to set up an inquiry is not just reactive. It is, in a sense, reactive to a series of problems. The death might have been a catalyst, but there is a series of endemic problems, systemic problems—which even the Chief Minister admitted in early October—that are causing significant concerns. They are concerns that have been ongoing, not just for a few months, here and now, here and then, and then you do not hear anything and then some other problem crops up. It is not like that.
There seems to be a series of systemic problems which are enveloping our health system in the ACT which are not going away, which are concerning the professionals who work there, which are concerning patients who go there and which are concerning the loved ones of patients who go there. Many people in Canberra have contact with our health system, and that is not going to go away. Surely, at the end, of the day what you want is the most effective health system you could actually deliver.
What we need is a fair dinkum independent inquiry which will actually help identify real systemic problems. It would be independent. It would not tell the government—it does not matter what government it is; we happen to have a Labor government at present but we had a Liberal government during the Gallop inquiry—what it necessarily wants to hear. It has got a lot more chance of getting to the root of the matter, drilling down into the nitty-gritty and coming up with some real solutions to a number of systemic problems in our system, much more so than any other type of inquiry. It would be a lot more proactive than just reacting to one disaster after another.
The minister said a couple of other things. I think she said, for example, that we are testing year 6 kids to see if they are healthy. I understand that is actually a commonwealth initiative. It involves Dick Telford, and apparently it is not all year 6 children. Mr Corbell stated that the problems are chronic and difficult. Yes, they are, but they are not going to go away. They are unfortunately not going away. We are not seeing waiting times in A&E come down. That eight-hour average seems to be continuing. That is of concern, a lot of concern, to people.
The allegations that our hospitals are over-bureaucratised and the allegations, for example, that Peter Collignon talked about, that space that should be used for treating patients is being used for administrative purposes, do not seem to be going away. The fracture clinic, which does a wonderful job in very difficult circumstances, seems really stretched, and that does not seem to be going away. The letter I read out yesterday made a reference to that, and I observed firsthand back in April some of the problems they had. We have some great staff in our system and it behoves government, because of that great staff, to make the working conditions and the way the hospital runs as good as we possibly humanly can make them. We are never going to get it completely right, but I think there is a hell of a lot more we can do.
I want to speak about the terms of reference for the inquiry. I listened with interest to Dr Foskey’s apologies for not backing this sensible move and just backing the Labor government. If the boot were on the other foot, I doubt very much if you would be doing that. I think you would probably be leading the charge for an inquiry. I was a bit disappointed to hear you basically sweep that under the carpet.
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