Page 2695 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 6 June 2012
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How well are they spending our money in health? How well are they spending our money? How many other examples are there where they have wasted money because they simply have failed to manage it? They have created dysfunction by bullying doctors. They have covered up that bullying. They have made outrageous decisions in terms of things like that MRI scanner. We heard this week that there was a blackout that interrupted brain surgery at the Canberra Hospital. How is the management from the top on these issues? It is not there and that is why we have seen it go backwards.
They can talk about what they spend but let us talk about the results. The results speak for themselves. We have gone from having one of the best health systems in the country to having the worst when it comes to elective surgery and when it comes to emergency surgery waiting lists. We have seen the 10-year war in obstetrics. We have seen time after time that when people try and fix it they get bullied. There is the leadership from the minister. Those are the moments for leadership. When those doctors spoke out, the moment was there for Katy Gallagher to step up, push through her concerns about some negative publicity, and say: “I want to work with you. I want to work with you to fix it.”
That would have been the right response. That would have been a leadership response. But what did Katy do? She attacked them. We know she attacked them unfairly, unfoundedly and we know that their concerns were valid. We know that they had valid concerns and then she proceeded to cover up the inquiry.
Madam Deputy Speaker, this motion should be supported. It should be supported because 11 years is enough of this kind of management of the health system, and it is not about Katy Gallagher. It is her responsibility; it is her responsibility to the community. That community have suffered in this 11 years. They deserve better and that is why this motion should be supported. (Time expired.)
MS BRESNAN (Brindabella) (11.54): The Greens will not be supporting the motion today. The thing that needs to be emphasised with the ACT health system is that, yes, we do not measure up well in some areas but in others we do. In certain measures we might not be the best in the country but in other areas we are the best, and that is the nature of any health system.
The debate and the portrayal in the media continually go to areas where we can give a number or a figure. The point I have consistently made is that all areas of the health system are important but we focus only on certain areas, at the expense of others. Yes, elective surgery is important. For someone needing particular surgery and having to wait for that when it impacts on their life, that is distressing. Emergency department waiting times are also important. But it is important to acknowledge, which this motion does not, that there is a triage system and that the ACT measures well in some categories but not in others.
I have also expressed my concern, as have many health groups and health professionals, about ED waiting times coming down to four hours and having payments attached to those particular waiting times. This measure and others attached to health tell us very little, almost nothing in some instances, about patient outcomes.
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