Page 115 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 16 February 2011
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Mr Stanhope: That well-known member of the Liberal Party? That is the well-known member of the Liberal Party, is it? That one.
MR HANSON: Dr Hughes represents a significant number of doctors in the ACT and for doctors to so publicly call—
Members interjecting—
MR SPEAKER: Order!
MR HANSON: for a minister’s resignation shows how high the levels of frustration are with her performance.
MR SPEAKER: Order! Mr Hanson, one moment, please. Stop the clocks, thank you. Members, I expect this to be a contentious debate but let us try and conduct it in a manner that is somewhat edifying. Mr Hanson has the floor and I expect to hear him in silence.
MR HANSON: Mr Speaker, thank you. Dr Hughes realises what many patients do, that after nearly five years as health minister, Minister Gallagher has been utterly ineffective and across almost every measure the health system has deteriorated.
Every week I get numerous complaints about the health system, be it from an elderly patient who has waited in pain for over a year for elective surgery, a parent of a young child who waited 16 hours for treatment in the emergency department, a GP who is getting no support from the government, a cancer patient who has had to go to Sydney after being lost by the system, nurses who have been bullied, doctors who have made complaints that were ignored or, as I heard yesterday, from the frustrated father of a son suffering from a mental illness. The complaints are constant.
Normally people are full of praise for the overstretched doctors and nurses, but often they say the same thing to me, that Minister Gallagher is just not getting the job done. Since we last met, we have seen more evidence that this is the case. We have talked at length about the litany of problems experienced by our health system, many directly caused by the minister’s neglect. I will touch on them later.
Since the Assembly last sat, we have seen not just a significant doctors group calling for her to be dismissed; we have seen also the appalling results on the MyHospitals website and we have seen the damning Auditor-General’s report into elective surgery waiting lists. These are the waiting lists that are the longest in the country. They are twice as long as the national average—lists with over 5,000 Canberrans waiting for surgery, 15 per cent of them waiting for over a year.
What is clear is that we have a crisis in elective surgery in the ACT, and this is a crisis of Minister Gallagher’s and of ACT Labor’s making. The median waiting time was 40 days when ACT Labor took office; it is now 75 days—nearly double. This does not count the year-long wait many people suffer whilst they are actually waiting just to get onto an elective surgery waiting list.
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