Page 35 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 15 February 2011
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MRS DUNNE: Supplementary question, Mr Speaker?
MR SPEAKER: Yes, Mrs Dunne. You have the call.
MRS DUNNE: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Minister, since 13 December 2010 when you said there would no longer be a need for MSS staff there, have there been any other occasions, apart from the one publicised, in which private security guards were operating in any area of Bimberi facility without the direct supervision of employed staff located in the same area? If so, when and, if so, why?
MS BURCH: This forms part of the operational review. We have set some clear instructions for staff and certainly methods of oversight and supervision have been very clear with myself and management of Bimberi. As to were there individual incidents on any particular day or any particular night at any particular time, I am happy to take what advice I can, but I would also rather it come out within the operational review that we have already implemented.
We have two independent experts looking at this and they will report to me by mid to end March and I am quite happy to bring back to you what I can.
MS BRESNAN: A supplementary, Mr Speaker.
MR SPEAKER: Yes, Ms Bresnan.
MS BRESNAN: Minister, how much longer do you anticipate needing private security guards and when will Bimberi be at full staffing capacity?
MS BURCH: We have 56 funded positions there and we continue to have rolling recruitment. We have a turnover or separation rate of somewhere between 12 and 14 per cent. It is not ideal—I agree with you—to have MSS. But if we cannot have a workforce through the youth workers on permanent departmental employ, MSS may form a vital function of operations at Bimberi.
Hospitals—waiting lists
MR HANSON: My question is to the Minister for Health. Minister, on 23 June, you said this in the Assembly about reclassification of some patients on elective surgery lists:
In relation to concerns that there has been doctoring of lists or manipulation of lists, can I stand here and say that that is simply untrue …
You then went on to say:
… I can absolutely say that that is not the case.
The Auditor-General has now found that 97 per cent of the reclassification of category 1 patients in 2009-10 occurred without documented clinical reasons. Based on the Auditor-General’s findings, how can the people of the ACT have confidence that waiting lists have not been manipulated or doctored?
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