Page 3571 - Week 11 - Thursday, 23 October 2014
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Mr Doszpot interjecting—
MADAM SPEAKER: Order, Mr Doszpot! You have asked your question.
MS GALLAGHER: With respect to Cranleigh, the proposal put on the table was to transition to the HAAS program during term 4, during this term. A joint letter was sent to families advising them of that change. There has been a meeting in the last week. I have certainly been given feedback from a parent—not a lot of parents, but one parent—who has been in contact with me about concerns with this. I have sought further advice from Health and education to make sure that those concerns can be addressed, and addressed smoothly with the best interests of the child at heart.
MADAM SPEAKER: Supplementary question, Mr Doszpot.
MR DOSZPOT: Minister, what training will be provided to learning support assistants to ensure that they can assist children with complex medical needs, and will this training be equivalent to the training given to the registered nurse?
MS GALLAGHER: The learning support assistants will not be registered nurse trained, and that is not the model that has been implemented with success in the other schools already. The process is that the registered nurse works with the family and with other health professionals to agree on a plan for a particular student. The registered nurse then trains the learning support assistant. There are three trained for each child; that allows for people to have holidays and take leave during the school day. They will not work as nurses, but they will be able to complete health tasks under the direction of a registered nurse—tasks not dissimilar to the tasks that parents undertake often for these children without necessarily being a registered nurse.
There is a lot of training that goes in. The LSAs are supported until they feel comfortable to take on this care. If they are not, that is addressed further. The feedback I have had about concerns that have been raised by parents before this program, and then after they have agreed to go with it, is that they have been very satisfied, as have the LSAs and the schools in terms of the ability to care for the complex needs of these children.
I agree that if there are concerns at Cranleigh School—every child in this area needs to be cared for differently because their medical needs are always different. If there are students that this program is not going to work for, we need to understand that. We need to get that process right. I understand the concerns that have been raised. I know that Health and Education will be working with those families to address any concerns they have.
MADAM SPEAKER: A supplementary question, Mr Wall.
MR WALL: Minister, what is the government’s rationale for removing registered nurses from the territory’s specialist schools?
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