Page 3197 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 22 August 2012
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What the Auditor-General found is this:
… the classification of clinical urgency categories did not always reflect ACT Health’s policy and procedures, and therefore raised doubts on the reliability and appropriateness of the clinical classifications …
The Auditor-General found:
In particular, downgrades of patients’ urgency category, often without documented clinical reasons, raised considerable doubts about the reliability and appropriateness of the clinical classification for patients on waiting lists.
And the Auditor-General found systemic problems. She said:
ACT Health conducted an internal review of the outpatient services at TCH and a draft report in October 2010 found deficiencies in strategic planning, inconsistent application of policies and procedures … ad hoc processes for managing the waiting lists, and poor and inefficient communications with clinicians, consumers and staff.
Further, the Auditor-General found:
The strategies implemented by ACT Heath have not been adequate to address increased demand, and reduce the waiting lists for elective surgery.
We know that many people have waited far longer than they should have on elective surgery waiting lists. We know that this government did not maintain the funding required for elective surgery. In 2002, the then health minister, Jon Stanhope, when this was raised in estimates, said, “There will be pain.” And there was. He knew that not maintaining that funding would cause pain—pain for many thousands of Canberrans waiting for elective surgery.
What we are seeing here is another damning indictment of this government’s performance in the health arena. But not only has elective surgery deteriorated under this government, just as emergency departments have deteriorated under this government; the Auditor-General found that with elective surgery waiting lists the data was essentially inappropriately changed—it was manipulated—just as it has been for the emergency department.
We hear from those opposite, and from the crossbench, that there are no problems. But what we are seeing from the Auditor-General, from her reports, is that patients are suffering, patients are waiting longer than anywhere else in Australia, and the truth about it is being manipulated. We know that it was changed in elective surgery leading up to 2010. And we know that not just one individual but, the Auditor-General found, probably a number of senior executives and other staff have been manipulating emergency department data.
It is worth making those notes to put this into context, particularly given the vote of no confidence that was brought against the Chief Minister this morning.
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