Page 3664 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 21 November 2007
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Mrs Burke: Management systems.
MS GALLAGHER: And management systems, which are management at the hospital. Mrs Burke can’t have it both ways, as I have said before. She cannot criticise management and then go all warm and fuzzy about the staff and how this is not reflecting on staff.
Mrs Burke: I said doctors and nurses. Yes, I can.
MS GALLAGHER: Oh, only the doctors and nurses? Okay; so they are all right—the doctors and nurses who are delivering the health care, who are delivering the care that you say you get all these complaints about. Are the complaints around management systems—this raft of complaints?
Mrs Burke: You’ve got them; you’ve had them today.
MS GALLAGHER: I have had none. I would say I have had between five and 10 matters in recent times, bearing in mind the workload of the Canberra Hospital. I will go back and have a look but I would be surprised if it is more than 10 complaints—
Mrs Burke: They know telling you does nothing; that is why. People have given up.
MS GALLAGHER: You are a highly offensive woman, Mrs Burke. She is a highly offensive woman.
Mrs Burke: No, I will read you out some emails, if you like. I can read you some emails.
MS GALLAGHER: I undertake to go back and look at every email you have given me over the past six months in relation to a complaint. I would say that at the most there would be 20. You have just said that you forward to me a raft of complaints from doctors, nurses, patients and people in the street. I reject that. I read every bit of correspondence and email that you send to me, and I cannot recall one from a doctor.
Maybe there is one in relation to OMFS, but I would have to go back and look at that. But it is absolute rubbish simply to wander in here and say that you get a raft of complaints, that you have handed them all on, that they do not get responded to and that the system never changes. I respond to every email and every letter of complaint. And surprise, surprise: I respond to every letter that I get, which is not an insubstantial amount, praising the Canberra Hospital.
As usual, we are just focusing on the Canberra Hospital, because we could not upset your friends over at Calvary. I respond to every letter that I get that says, “Gee, what a wonderful health system we have,” “I was treated so well,” “My treatment was excellent,” and “The quality of the way I was treated was excellent.”
Mrs Burke: That’s good, but listen to the ones that are not getting this treatment. Listen to the people who are not getting the treatment.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .