Page 3114 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 22 August 2012
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… the Canberra Hospital’s ATS Category 3 results (i.e. achievements against the target) were overstated by at least 19 percent, and ATS Category 4 results were overstated by at least 10 percent.
Mr Speaker, this is the biggest systemic deception in the territory’s history. In fact, I would not be surprised to find it the biggest ongoing deception of health records in the country.
The community has to ask: how could this have happened? First, we know that this was not one rogue staffer. It was clearly more than one, because records were altered while the person who has admitted the tampering was on leave—and others use a password the confessor denies using. There is a deeper problem here, and one which Katy Gallagher simply will not pursue.
Second, we have already established there is a sick culture in the management of ACT Health, a culture that comes from the top down. The Auditor General’s report stated it most bluntly:
Managerial pressure was placed on the executive to improve the performance of the Emergency Department.
The person who altered the data testified:
The environment in the executive at Canberra Hospital has increasingly become one where I felt fearful for myself and for other people that I work with.
Even more concerning was the following:
In response to Audit’s question ‘there’s a correlation between not meeting these targets and people actually losing their jobs?’ the executive responded ‘yes’.
That is just part of the awful saga that is the data doctoring scandal, but the connection between the management of the health system and Katy Gallagher is far closer than was previously revealed, and one which calls into question the judgement, honesty and character of the person who has become Chief Minister without ever facing the public to do so.
When the story of the data altering became known to Katy Gallagher on a weekend in April this year, Katy Gallagher knew instantly that she had a very real and very close connection to the person at the centre of the scandal. But for days and days after the story broke, Katy Gallagher said absolutely nothing about her connection to the person involved.
On the Monday, she is reported as saying she told “everything she knew”. That was simply not true. A bizarre unfolding of half-truths and part-stories emerged as Katy Gallagher twisted and turned and changed her story as more facts were uncovered—and it turns out none of them have been the whole story. Not once has Katy Gallagher told the whole truth about her connection to this person.
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