Page 47 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 15 February 2011
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MR SPEAKER: A supplementary, Mr Doszpot?
MR DOSZPOT: Yes, Mr Speaker. Minister, why would ACT citizens have confidence in the accuracy of waiting list statistics given the failure to follow policy and procedures?
MS GALLAGHER: The area scrutinised and the area you are referring to, as I said, is a very small part of the overall elective surgery management program. When you look at this year, 10,700 procedures being done under this program, this has looked at 250 cases. So to the largest extent possible, the elective surgery management and the list is managed. Yes, there is pressure; yes, we are getting more people onto the lists than we have ever seen. At the same time, we are removing more people than we have ever seen. We have got more theatres open than we have ever had before. The throughput is something that we had to maintain our focus on, but there is not any reason for us to believe that people are not being classified in accordance with the overall category of category 1, 2 and 3. That is certainly what I have asked the surgeons to abide by—that they do not classify patients incorrectly just as a way of jumping the queue, because the queue has to be managed.
MR HANSON: A supplementary, Mr Speaker?
MR SPEAKER: Yes, Mr Hanson.
MR HANSON: Minister, when did you become aware that surgeons are deliberately putting their patients into a category 1 because otherwise their patients simply will not get a date for surgery within a system that is entirely broken?
MS GALLAGHER: I reject that. The system is not entirely broken. It is offensive for you to say that the system is entirely broken. Not one suggestion out of you! Not one constructive idea in your whole time as shadow minister! Not one constructive idea, yet you are so ready to jump up and put the fear through the people of Canberra by saying that the elective surgery system is broken. The system is not broken.
Mr Hargreaves: Point of order, Mr Speaker. You have warned Mr Hanson.
MR SPEAKER: Sit down, Mr Hargreaves.
MS GALLAGHER: The paperwork was not filled out appropriately. It should have been, and it will be from now on. The system is not broken. To the hundreds of people that work in this area, your line, your allegation, that the system is broken is offensive. In terms of when was I told by a doctor to my face that—
Mr Seselja: Not to your face. When did you know?
MS GALLAGHER: That is the clear evidence that I have, because someone admitted to doing it—was last week. In terms of anecdotally—
Mr Seselja: Before then you knew nothing.
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