Page 446 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 13 February 2013
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approach, a fresh look, an external look, and said, “These are the problems. Here are some ideas. Fix it.” We have seen improvement.
Why would we not do that for our emergency departments? Why would we miss that opportunity? I do not want to go out of this place and say things like, “The government is wanting to hide what is happening in our emergency departments; the government is not doing anything.” What I would rather do is go out and say, “The Assembly today has come up with a solution. The Assembly today has come up with a way forward. We can actually have somebody look at how to improve our emergency departments by taking a fresh look.” Why would we not do that?
The Chief Minister is sniggering across the chamber. I find that disappointing. Why is that—
Ms Gallagher: Sorry, Jeremy.
MR HANSON: Well, here is an opportunity to find a way out of the quagmire and it is disappointing that—
Ms Gallagher: I am just commenting on nice Jeremy. I am just saying how nice you are.
MR HANSON: Yes.
Ms Gallagher: Did you have a Serepax or something this morning?
MR HANSON: There is an outbreak of love. We will see. We will see from your response, Chief Minister. There was an issue with data doctoring at the emergency department. We were aware of that. The Auditor-General did a review last year on that. But let me make the point that that was a very specific review about the data tampering. It was not about the broader issues of the ED. The Auditor-General found a bunch of interim issues relating to aspects connected to the data tampering. I believe Mr Doszpot will be covering off on some of those that were addressed to the PAC committee.
But the point is that this is not about that review. This is about a broader look at the systems, at the staff, at the qualifications of staff, at the reasons for the pressures on the ED, what it is that we can do both within the hospital—perhaps with increased beds, with improved systems—and external to the hospital.
Why not have a fresh look at this? There is a decision that this Assembly can make today and it is a pretty straightforward one, to be honest. Do we acknowledge that there is a problem? Do we acknowledge that despite the government’s effort that problem is continually getting worse? Do we accept that when we had a similar problem in elective surgery we found a way through that?
I acknowledge that there has been improvement in elective surgery. I am happy to say that. Despite what the Chief Minister says, I am not here to see bad results. I want to see good results and that is why we did what we did for elective surgery. It would be
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