Page 3588 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 18 August 2010
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This is an important finding, given the very public allegations that were made by private obstetricians and the Liberals about public safety. Some of the actions they have taken have caused unnecessary anxiety amongst a number of women about the quality of clinical services they will receive if they use public maternity wards. If they only had concerns about staff behaviour they should have said that from the beginning; they should not have included allegations also about public safety. Twice now the issue of public safety has been raised by private obstetricians in a very public manner in recent years, and twice that concern has been found to be unsubstantiated. I draw your attention to the health commissioner’s 2005 investigation in making this statement.
Another problem that we Greens have with paragraph (1) of the motion is that it blurs the lines between what were official findings of the report and what were matters that were discussed in its chapters. The Greens believe it is important that the Assembly only note information that is fair and accurate, and it is inappropriate to skew the author’s findings. It is also concerning that he lists the reduction in gynaecological surgery as a finding of serious concern but the reason for the drop is not stated. I also would just like to point out his mis-spelling of the word “gynaecological”. I hope this does not reflect his poor knowledge of women’s health. I think we have “gynealogical”, which sounds more like studying family trees.
As readers of the review, we do not know if the drop in gynaecological surgery is because there has been a drop in demand for this kind of surgery, and, if that is the case, is Mr Hanson seriously suggesting that more gynaecological surgery be performed even though it is unnecessary?
There are other policy findings from the report that are important to the Greens, like the passive way ACT Health has been found to have conducted patient surveys and the high level of dissatisfaction women have with the limited access to public antenatal clinics. These are issues which directly affect pregnant women, and are issues which Mr Hanson does not address. In fact, I urge Mr Hanson to represent a larger constituency than just that of the private sector. Does he, for example, represent those staff who are not privately employed and are not in a senior position? What about the nurses and midwives? Has Mr Hanson spoken to them?
Other parts of this review and the government’s response to it, which the Greens believe to be important and have asked the minister’s office about, include how the $8.6 million in new funding will be spent on new staffing positions and what will be done to ensure there is a robust performance management appraisal process for all staff that incorporates more than just clinical practices.
In light of the findings about the Canberra Hospital’s management team, the next major area the Liberals and Greens must engage in is the impact the restructure of the Canberra Hospital will have on funding for different divisions of the hospital, especially given questions are starting to be asked by interested stakeholders. The full range of concerns that have been raised through the review require more complex policy responses than the Liberals have proposed to date.
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