Page 2659 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 29 June 2010
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So how is it that doctors are resisting or refusing requests when, on Tuesday last week, the minister said that doctors never receive requests? It is quite remarkable. Quite clearly, the minister has misled us and she has misled the community.
On Wednesday, she was changing her story by 180 degrees. She went forward and said, “No, it is policy.” She started waving around the policy. She started trying to ridicule me by saying, “You haven’t read it,” when, the day before, she was denying that it was actually listed in the policy or that it actually existed. The minister who, the day before, said, “There is no policy; the policy does not exist; ACT Health doesn’t contact doctors to downgrade their patients,” the very next day was waving around a policy and showing that it does.
If she is saying that that policy does not exist, is she saying that Dr Bryan Ashman is incorrect in his letter? Dr Bryan Ashman in his letter said that many surgeons resist or refuse requests to downgrade the category.
Members interjecting—
MR SPEAKER: Order! I cannot hear Mr Hanson.
MR HANSON: So how does she correlate that with her earlier statement that ACT Health does not actually contact doctors to ask that their patients be downgraded? There are some absolute and clear contradictions, Mr Speaker. What we are seeing is a policy that says that doctors are being written to. I will read what the draft policy is, in addition to what is being denied by the minister. What is going out further from ACT Health, in the policy that is being proposed, is that the surgeon will be asked to re-categorise patients that cannot be accommodated within 30 days in their routine sessions as a ‘2a staged procedure’ that will be performed on an agreed date within the 60-day period. And this is the key part:
If the referring surgeon refuses to rank the patients, then the clinical director will do so.
So not only are doctors being asked to downgrade their patients, but what we are finding now is that it is being proposed that if a doctor refuses to downgrade their patient, that decision will be taken away from them. This is what is happening. Not only do we know it is policy, we know there is a draft policy that wants to take the decision away from the minister, but this is the same minister who, the week before, was denying the fact that there was a policy.
Ms Gallagher: I don’t make the decision about who gets the elective surgery.
Mr Smyth: No, you said there were no decisions.
MR SPEAKER: Order!
MR HANSON: Mr Speaker, it is clear—
Members interjecting—
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