Page 2090 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 21 June 2011
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MS GALLAGHER: You reported your median wait time but you did not report your long wait list.
Mr Hanson: It has doubled, hasn’t it, Katy?
MS GALLAGHER: In terms of our reporting, the reporting that you get in the health area now, compared to 2001 is much more comprehensive.
Mr Hargreaves: On a point of order, Mr Speaker, isn’t there a standing order which requires that members on that side not ignore all the things that you have said, like, “Be quiet”?
MR SPEAKER: Thank you, Mr Hargreaves. We will continue with question time and have less intervention. Thank you. Chief Minister.
MS GALLAGHER: Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is interesting, I think, that in 2001 the then Liberal government delivered about 6,800 operations and their waiting list was, I think, about 3,800—
Mr Smyth: Yours was 488.
MS GALLAGHER: It was 3,800 fewer. You are a man with a love of numbers. We are now delivering 10,700 procedures a year and our waiting list is not much bigger than yours was then, when you were not even delivering the level of activity. In relation to the median wait time, the median time wait time, which those opposite focus on as much as they do, did not include any reports at that point of time around long waits on the list. The median wait time is the measure of people removed from the list. It is not a measure of the people who remain on the list.
In my reporting and the reporting against the priorities that I will outline later to this place—and I know you are all looking forward to that—my target is going to be that we increase the numbers of people who are seen within clinically approved times. Even though our waiting list is going down, the number of people getting access to their surgery on time is increasing. Despite all of that, our median wait time will continue to grow. It will continue to grow. Whilst you have all these other areas where you are improving—(Time expired.)
MR SPEAKER: Members, there is too much interjecting. Someone is going to get warned shortly. Mr Doszpot, you have a supplementary question?
MR DOSZPOT: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Minister, do you accept responsibility for the worst elective surgery waiting lists in the nation?
MS GALLAGHER: I do not believe that we do have the worst elective surgery waiting lists in the nation.
Mr Doszpot: Look at the figures. Read your stats.
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