Page 3012 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 30 June 2010
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During estimates, the minister provided us with some vague ideas that, “Oh, well, this rolled over because of a particular reason.” But there is nothing that gave anybody any assurance when I was in those committee hearings that she is actually on top of her portfolio when it comes to delivering major infrastructure—and that the capital asset development plan will be delivered on time or on budget or on scope.
In terms of capital investment, of course, a future capital investment relates to the Calvary hospital purchase. Throughout this year, we have seen the most atrocious process. It started in secret before the last election, when Katy Gallagher said that all of our deals are on the table, and that was simply not true. We have seen this deal collapse. We saw Clare Holland House being used as a sweetener, and we have still got this ridiculous situation where the government are pursuing this deal where they want to make the books look better to the tune of $145 million over the next 20 years and it is going to cost them $160 million in cash to do that. Regardless of the fact that the deal has fallen over and that they are not now going to take Calvary over, they still want to do that, and that is going to have a significant impact on our budget—the cash element of our budget in particular.
The consequence of Katy Gallagher’s process has been a number of concerns that have been raised by the medical staff council and others at Calvary hospital. Again, a recommendation from the dissenting report was that Katy Gallagher immediately investigate those concerns and report back to the Assembly with what those concerns are and how she is going to address them. I again urge her to do so.
Access block this year has been certainly reported on in the budget as a significant, ongoing problem. Another problem that is unique and has come out this time is the fact that the reporting of access block may have been misreported by Calvary hospital. I believe that issue is being addressed, but I would certainly urge the minister to make sure that any reporting of figures that occurs within her department is a true and accurate reflection of the statistics—in this case, emergency department waiting times.
If I can reflect on bullying and the incidents of bullying that we have heard of that are systemic across the portfolio, and the culture surveys that are being conducted, I appreciate that there are some commercial-in-confidence elements with the whole report, but certainly we need to see the results of that, so that we can be assured that our staff, our doctors and our nurses are working in a safe and productive environment.
In terms of the review of obstetrics, I would ask the minister to make sure—and we will be looking at this one very thoroughly—that anything that is released with that report is done so by an independent body, not through a political process. I will not rest until I make sure that that has occurred. In terms of bullying, both from the obstetrics and from the more general concerns that we have had, I do believe that, until we have a full review across health of the aspects of bullying that have been brought to our attention, this is something that is going to go on; this is something that will not be addressed. I know that the minister will not agree with that recommendation that was in the dissenting report, but I again call on her to look at that dissenting report recommendation and consider a full review of bullying across health, because we know it is happening. You know it is happening and I know it is happening.
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