Page 1869 - Week 06 - Thursday, 9 May 2013
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Nurses are the professionals that 90 per cent of all Australians believe are the most respected professionals in the country. Nurses have a great sense of social justice and know more than anyone about customer focus and the needs of their patients. To truly respect our nurses and midwives it surely matters how we treat them and what they think. What they think would be exposed in the Canberra Hospital cultural satisfaction surveys, and I again call on the government to release the full outcomes of the cultural surveys.
On reflecting on the roles of nurses and midwives as part of strong medical teams, we need to heed a note of caution in considering new health delivery initiatives. And I would like to mention two in particular—the proposed stand-alone birthing centre and the nurse walk-in centres.
Firstly, the issue of the study for the new stand-alone birthing centre, ACT Labor and the Canberra Liberals have agreed that the separation of a proposed new centre away from a major health facility is not good public health policy. I agree 100 per cent with Katy Gallagher that we should not be doing that, and it is distressing to me to see that the new Labor-Greens alliance has revived a proposal, a Greens election policy, for a birthing centre not connected to a hospital. The proposal has been given funding in 2013.
That indicates one of two things: that the government is seriously considering implementing what would be a very poor piece of public policy and one that the government has already articulated it does not support, or Katy Gallagher and the Labor Party are simply wasting that money that could be better spent elsewhere within the health system. One of those two is correct. I will be interested to hear Katy Gallagher, if she is going to speak, indicate to this place whether she will countenance a separate birthing centre away from the major hospital or whether this is an exercise in futility and is just simply part of the negotiations to get the Greens’ support for the government.
Further, I would like to raise the issue of the management of the nurse-led walk-in centres. It is important that emergency departments are able to provide care in life-threatening emergencies and other cases requiring urgent care. But a number of issues have been raised about the walk-in centres, and I cite the Health Directorate’s own strategies. Walk-in centres are not expected to produce any improvement in performance and will not target the majority of triage category 3 and 4 patients that are the clear group requiring intervention. They should not be regarded as a strategy that will contribute to ED performance and are likely to create demand. And that is what we have seen. Indeed, the AMA said that unless doctors and nurses work collaboratively, you are just going to get a worse outcome. Indeed, this is my point.
As I have said, I have the utmost respect for the work that our nurses and midwives are doing, and when you talk to nurses and midwives and other health professionals, they agree they work best in a team. Indeed, I recall that a significant point made by the GP task force was that health professionals, be it doctors or nurses, always work best in a team. That is why separating one group of health professionals—in this case, nurses—to work in a stand-alone facility does not make sense.
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