Page 2606 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 5 June 2012
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Opposition members interjecting—
MR SPEAKER: Order, members! Mr Hanson has a supplementary question.
MR HANSON: Minister, if it is all so good, why do we have amongst the longest waiting times for elective surgery in the nation, the longest waiting times for emergency departments in the nation and a chronic shortage of GPs which has us at the second lowest number per capita, behind the Northern Territory? And, if it is all so good, why are your senior staff deliberately manipulating the data?
MS GALLAGHER: Obviously Mr Hanson has not listened to any of the answers that I have given to previous questions. The health system is broader than the elective surgery and emergency department. And I am not trying to shy away from responsibility for those at all. But in order to improve those areas you need to create capacity. In order to create capacity you need beds. You need to stop removing the 100 beds that the Liberal Party took out of the system, and that has taken years to do because you need to employ the doctors and the nurses to actually staff those beds.
That is the legacy of Brendan Smyth when he was last in control of the health system: 114 beds taken away. They have taken time to replace. But the answer to improving both of those figures, emergency department and elective surgery, is to create the capacity. So what have we done? We have built extra operating theatres. We are doing record amounts of elective surgery; 11,000 procedures a year are being done. We are creating extra capacity in the emergency department and extra beds within the hospital. That is what we do. It takes time. It takes hard work. It takes commitment. It takes resources and it takes a preparedness to stand by the staff who are working in the public health system who deliver those services every day.
Mr Seselja: Not hide behind them—
MR SPEAKER: Members!
Mr Seselja: Not hide behind them.
MR SPEAKER: Mr Seselja!
MS GALLAGHER: I do not intend to hide behind them, Mr Seselja. I never have. I have fronted every press conference and every public question on any matter relating to the health system. That is leadership. I never hide behind public servants. I never have and I never will. I am prepared to stand up for our public health system, day in, day out—because, day in, day out, I read the files of the hard work of all of the professionals that work in that system. I read the files. I understand what they do. They work hard and they deserve our support, Mr Seselja.
It being 2.30 pm, questions were interrupted pursuant to the order of the Assembly.
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