Page 165 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 16 February 2011
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MR SPEAKER: Mrs Dunne, a supplementary.
MRS DUNNE: Minister, in your answer to Ms Hunter’s question you said that you receive updates once a month on use of force at Bimberi. Is this correct, and why is it so infrequently?
MS BURCH: That has been an historical reporting pattern to me and I am satisfied with that.
MR SPEAKER: Ms Bresnan, a supplementary?
MS BRESNAN: Minister, in relation to your answer about the human rights commissioner’s report on the incident, will you request the Attorney-General to provide you with a copy of the report and will you make this report publicly available?
MS BURCH: I will certainly ask to see a copy of the report, Mr Speaker.
Hospitals—waiting lists
MR HANSON: My question is to the Minister for Health. Yesterday you stated to the Assembly:
There is a policy of no reclassification without a form, without that form being signed and without a clinical reason being provided by the doctors.
But the Auditor-General in her report on waiting lists for elective surgery found:
ACT Health’s implementation and monitoring processes are not managed well to deliver the intended outcomes.
Minister, why was ACT Health policy not being followed?
MS GALLAGHER: Look, Mr Hanson, I am not sure there is a clear answer to it, other than I think—
Mr Seselja: Well, nothing’s clear these days.
MS GALLAGHER: I do not think there is a clear answer to it. There is an interconnection here between policies and custom and practice. Custom and practice was that private rooms ring up the surgical booking staff, they say a particular surgeon is not available. It is an email that says, “The doctor is not available, this person is now category 2.” That is put on the file on the electronic list. These are some of the examples the audit found.
In other cases the surgical booking unit says, “You’ve got too many category 1s. You can’t fit them all in.” This is done over the phone. It seems that custom and practice had evolved over many years—probably the whole time elective surgery work has
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