Page 2806 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 17 September 2014
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work. I do not think there is anything new that has not been ventilated in this place or across the hospital in that information to staff. There was a commitment in that to continue working with staff to address concerns that they may have now, and mapping out very clearly from the new executive director the leadership that he will show and the way he will work with management across the hospital to address pressures that are being experienced by the ED staff.
MADAM SPEAKER: Supplementary question, Mr Hanson.
MR HANSON: Are the “less than perfect” solutions that the executive director referred to continuing to be implemented?
MS GALLAGHER: I think what Mr Hanson is trying to suggest is that these initiatives should not have been implemented. If you go through it—
Mr Hanson: I am quoting from the email.
MS GALLAGHER: If you go through the email, if it is the same one that I saw, unless it has had those bits chopped out, you will see that it is about all of the different changes that have been brought in, which include extra staff, extra beds across the hospital, the mental health assessment unit—a whole range of initiatives, including changes to the model of care and the way that the emergency department itself operates internally. There are a range of strategies that have been implemented to address the pressure. Some of them have had more impact than others, but I do not believe any of them have been ceased, because they all form a part of the solution going forward.
MADAM SPEAKER: Supplementary question, Mr Doszpot.
MR DOSZPOT: Minister, why, after six years as health minister, are patients unable to access beds in a timely manner?
MS GALLAGHER: My answer to that, Mr Doszpot, is that they can access 200 more beds than they were able to when you were last in government. The Labor government has been investing in beds in every single budget that actually had for the first time taken our bed numbers to equal that of the rest of Australia. We now are on par with the rest of Australia after the Canberra Hospital was imploded and beds were lost. That is what happened. We had hundreds of beds cut from the system and we have built them back. Yes, the situation is under pressure now.
Mr Smyth: It’s true.
MS GALLAGHER: Yes, it is, but imagine what it would have been like if we had not been making the bed investment that we have made over the last 10 years.
Mr Hanson: Thirteen years you have had—13 years—and you are still making excuses.
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