Page 2669 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 29 June 2010
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MR SMYTH: Ms Gallagher interjects across the chamber that they do not do that. But Dr Ashman says that they do:
Many surgeons resist or refuse requests to downgrade the category …
They resist our requests to downgrade a category of their patients. How much clearer can it be? How much clearer does it have to be? “Never, ever”, “not to my knowledge”, “unlikely to contact”, “not in accordance with the policy”. There is the policy. We have actually got an unofficial policy that government doctors do contact, the government doctors do request, the government does request, that the surgeons downgrade the category of their patients.
We have got a minister in denial and apparently we have got the Greens, the third-party insurance policy, who refuse to accept it. Again, it is another case of third-party insurance fraud. It is very simple. The question of the mislead is: did they request? The answer provided by Dr Ashman is: “Yes, they do.”
We had the minister run her normal routine of denigration and she tried to get on the radio this morning and say, “Some of these doctors are putting people on the list and they have got things like ingrown toenails,” as if to say, “Doctors do not know what they are doing; an ingrown toenail is not very important.” The minister was caught right out because Ms Gallagher said:
An inappropriate classification—for example, the example I’ve been given is an ingrown toenail. Now, potentially that could have a very serious impact on the patient. So you’re not ruling out all situations in this category 1.
Ross Solly wanted to confirm that an ingrown toenail should not have been a category 1. Ms Gallagher replied that she had been given an example of an ingrown toenail when she asked for an incident of an inappropriate category 1.
Immediately there was an SMS from an obviously irate patient: “That ingrown toenail was mine. It’s badly infected my foot and my leg has swollen up and I was at risk of losing my foot.” And the minister’s defence was: “It wasn’t that ingrown toenail.” But that is the problem when you go down this path of denigrating those who would seek to question you.
The question was very simple: “Do they make the requests?” The answer given time and time again was “not to my knowledge”, “never, ever”, “unlikely to contact”, “not in accordance with the policy”. And what does the doctor responsible for that policy say? “The surgeons refuse the request to downgrade the category.” So it is quite clear in these circumstances that the minister has misled.
We know what happens, because we had it from Dr Hughes this morning:
When you don’t accede to the request for the downgrading you get bullied. This is just trying to bully the surgeons into downgrading patients so that they fit the minister’s profile of saying that 95 per cent of category 1 patients are treated within 30 days.
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